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.

Rangers at Canucks, Oct 28, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Rangers beat the Canucks 2–0, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Canucks had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 22 points of win probability to the Canucks.

The biggest swing (P1, 2:32 left): Mika Zibanejad scored on a wrist shot from 7 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Rangers.

Final

New York Rangers 2
Vancouver Canucks 0

October 28, 2025 · Rogers Arena

Luck index +35 Rangers lucky · −35 Canucks

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. Rangers win 7, Canucks win 3.

  1. 1 NYR 5 VAN 0
  2. 2 NYR 4 VAN 1
  3. 3 NYR 3 VAN 0
  4. 4 NYR 3 VAN 1
  5. 5 NYR 3 VAN 1
  6. 6 NYR 3 VAN 2
  7. 7 NYR 2 VAN 1
  8. 8 NYR 0 VAN 1
  9. 9 NYR 2 VAN 3
  10. 10 NYR 0 VAN 2

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 4,000 replays ended

Rangers win 65% of them, Canucks 35%. The line is what actually happened: Rangers by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Rangers by 3+32.4%
Rangers by 212.3%
Rangers by 120.7%
Canucks by 121.0%
Canucks by 26.6%
Canucks by 3+7.0%

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 +0.6 goals to the Rangers: the final margin was Rangers by 2, without the luck Rangers by 1.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Rangers4112.92−1.92
Canucks4302.13−2.13

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 9:36 Tripping on the Canucks (Arshdeep Bains): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYR
P1 0:20 Roughing on the Canucks (Marcus Pettersson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYR
P2 18:07 Interference on the Rangers (Adam Edstrom): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P2 15:58 Hooking on the Canucks (Evander Kane): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYR
P3 18:54 Interference on the Rangers (Carson Soucy): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN
P3 0:42 Slashing on the Rangers (Will Cuylle): 2 minutes on the power play +1% VAN
P3 0:00 Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Canucks (Kiefer Sherwood): 2 minutes on the power play 0% NYR

When it happened

Canucks’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Canucks were ahead in it, below while the Rangers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 9:36 Tripping on the Canucks (Arshdeep Bains): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NYR –
2 P1 2:32 Mika Zibanejad scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 12% chance +16% NYR –
3 P1 0:20 Roughing on the Canucks (Marcus Pettersson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NYR –
4 P2 18:07 Interference on the Rangers (Adam Edstrom): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% VAN –
5 P2 15:58 Hooking on the Canucks (Evander Kane): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NYR –
6 P3 18:54 Interference on the Rangers (Carson Soucy): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% VAN –
7 P3 13:46 Elias Pettersson’s wrist shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +5% NYR –
8 P3 1:57 Jake DeBrusk’s wrist shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +8% NYR –

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

Rangers 77% · Canucks 23%

Final margin
Rangers by 2
Luck in goals
0.6 for the Rangers
Luck-adjusted margin
Rangers by 1.4
Replay with same day's form
Rangers 65% · Canucks 35% 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.

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