luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 29, 2025

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

Maple Leafs at Blue Jackets, Oct 29, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Blue Jackets beat the Maple Leafs 6–3, but the replays lean toward the Maple Leafs: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 23 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

The biggest swing (P1, 13:04 left): Cole Sillinger scored on a wrist shot from 9 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

Final

Toronto Maple Leafs 3
Columbus Blue Jackets 6

October 29, 2025 · Nationwide Arena

Luck index +62 Blue Jackets very lucky · −62 Maple Leafs

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. Maple Leafs win 6, Blue Jackets win 4.

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

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 4,000.1 replays ended

Maple Leafs win 62% of them, Blue Jackets 38%. The line is what actually happened: Blue Jackets by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Maple Leafs by 3+31.9%
Maple Leafs by 211.1%
Maple Leafs by 119.0%
Blue Jackets by 119.6%
Blue Jackets by 27.7%
Blue Jackets by 3+10.7%

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 +3.3 goals to the Blue Jackets: the final margin was Blue Jackets by 3, without the luck Maple Leafs by 0.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Maple Leafs5233.73−0.73
Blue Jackets3662.31+3.69

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 1:42 Holding on the Maple Leafs (Philippe Myers): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CBJ
P3 16:19 Holding on the Blue Jackets (Damon Severson): 2 minutes on the power play 0% TOR
P3 15:58 Slashing on the Maple Leafs (Auston Matthews): 2 minutes on the power play 0% CBJ
P3 7:35 Hooking on the Blue Jackets (Dmitri Voronkov): 2 minutes on the power play 0% TOR

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ chance of winning

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 Blue Jackets were ahead in it, below while the Maple Leafs were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:04 Cole Sillinger scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 11% chance +14% CBJ –
2 P1 8:44 Zach Werenski scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 5% chance +13% CBJ –
3 P1 3:33 Dakota Joshua’s snap shot from 9 feet was savedShooting · 24% chance +3% CBJ –
4 P2 17:17 Sammy Blais scored on a bat shot from 7 feetShooting · 15% chance +12% TOR –
5 P2 17:02 Egor Chinakhov’s slap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 30% chance +4% TOR –
6 P2 11:27 Ivan Provorov scored on a backhand shot from 20 feetShooting · 11% chance +13% CBJ –
7 P2 9:19 Bobby McMann’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +3% CBJ –
8 P2 6:36 Cole Sillinger scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 13% chance +6% CBJ –

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

Maple Leafs 56% · Blue Jackets 44%

Final margin
Blue Jackets by 3
Luck in goals
3.3 for the Blue Jackets
Luck-adjusted margin
Maple Leafs by 0.3
Replay with same day's form
Maple Leafs 62% · Blue Jackets 38% 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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