luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 28, 2025

No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.

Flames at Maple Leafs, Oct 28, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Maple Leafs beat the Flames 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Maple Leafs win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 36 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

The biggest swing (P3, 2:04 left): Max Domi scored on a wrist shot from 24 feet, worth 39 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

Final

Calgary Flames 3
Toronto Maple Leafs 4

October 28, 2025 · Scotiabank Arena

Luck index +46 Maple Leafs lucky · −46 Flames

Each team’s own shots from this game, resampled into new games 4,000 times, each a goal at its chance, with the power plays the penalties gave and the pulled goalie at the end: with the way both teams actually played, how often does this performance win? How the replay works

Ten replays. Flames win 5, Maple Leafs win 5.

  1. 1 CGY 4 TOR 0
  2. 2 CGY 4 TOR 1
  3. 3 CGY 5 TOR 3
  4. 4 CGY 4 TOR 3
  5. 5 CGY 6 TOR 5
  6. 6 CGY 4 TOR 5
  7. 7 CGY 1 TOR 2
  8. 8 CGY 0 TOR 2
  9. 9 CGY 2 TOR 5
  10. 10 CGY 2 TOR 6

Three other ways to ask

Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.

No closing line for this game.

Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.

Every shot redrawn at its chance, overtime and the shootout replayed as near coin flips; the shots themselves and every call fixed. The narrowest view of luck.

How 3,999.9 replays ended

Flames win 46% of them, Maple Leafs 54%. The line is what actually happened: Maple Leafs by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flames by 3+17.5%
Flames by 29.1%
Flames by 119.1%
Maple Leafs by 121.8%
Maple Leafs by 210.3%
Maple Leafs by 3+22.2%

Where the luck was

What the luck was worth

Every lucky and unlucky play, weighted by the moment it happened: its swing in win probability, added up by kind. A post hit in a blowout counts for nothing; the same post with a minute left in a tie game can be most of a win.

Swings add up across a game, so in one that went back and forth they can pass 100%. On the scoreboard the same luck was worth +0.1 goals to the Flames: the final margin was Maple Leafs by 1, without the luck Maple Leafs by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flames3933.07−0.07
Maple Leafs5043.10+0.90

Regulation with both goalies in. Expected goals: our model of each shot’s chance from where and how it was taken (distance, angle, shot type, rebound, rush, strength), adjusted for the shooter’s and the goalie’s records. A team above expected finished better or met a weaker night in goal; 75% of the gap counts as luck (why that share).

Calls

Every penalty that put a team on the power play, and every goal taken off the board on review, with what it did to the helped team’s chance of winning at that moment. Calls don’t count toward luck by default: who draws penalties repeats from game to game like a skill (how calls are valued). Switch them on below.

WhenCallWin probability for
P1 10:49 Holding on the Maple Leafs (Oliver Ekman-Larsson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P1 8:54 Interference on the Flames (Connor Zary): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TOR
P1 5:58 Too many men on the ice on the Flames (CGY): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TOR
P1 3:54 Slashing on the Flames (Jonathan Huberdeau): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TOR
P1 1:29 Hooking on the Maple Leafs (Oliver Ekman-Larsson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P3 16:27 High sticking on the Flames (Joel Hanley): 2 minutes on the power play +6% TOR
P3 14:20 Tripping on the Maple Leafs (Matthew Knies): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CGY

When it happened

Maple Leafs’ chance of winning

As low as 27% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.

Our in-game win probability: the score and the time left, starting from the betting line (or the home edge alone when there is none), with goals at the league’s rates for the score. Overtime is drawn at a fixed width. Shaded above the middle while the Maple Leafs were ahead in it, below while the Flames were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:27 Morgan Frost scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 9% chance +15% CGY –
2 P2 16:47 Max Domi scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 6% chance +19% TOR –
3 P2 2:05 Joel Farabee scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 20% chance +20% CGY –
4 P2 0:35 Matthew Knies scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 14% chance +22% TOR –
5 P3 16:15 Matthew Knies scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 23% chance +21% TOR –
6 P3 5:11 Samuel Honzek scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 12% chance +33% CGY –
7 P3 2:04 Max Domi scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 7% chance +39% TOR –
8 P3 1:48 Jonathan Huberdeau’s wrist shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 27% chance +12% TOR –

Adjust the assumptions

Think finishing is more skill than we do, or that the calls were luck? Change it and the coin-flip replay reruns in your browser.

Only coin-flips re-rolled

Flames 27% · Maple Leafs 73%

Final margin
Maple Leafs by 1
Luck in goals
0.1 for the Flames
Luck-adjusted margin
Maple Leafs by 1.1
Replay with same day's form
Flames 46% · Maple Leafs 54% unchanged: why
How much of each is luck?

0% treats it as skill, 100% as pure luck. The tick is our fit.

What counts
Flip a play

Force the other outcome, in this game and in every replay: a goal becomes a save, a post goes in, a penalty goes the other way.

About these numbers

Play-by-play from the NHL via fastRhockey; expected goals, in-game win probability and the replays are our own models, fitted on every game since 2018-19 (methodology and validation). Blocked shots aren’t replayed (their location is the block’s, not the shot’s). No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.

All week 4 2025-26 games · Flames · Maple Leafs

More from week 4, 2025-26

Every game of week 4, 2025-26