luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 9, 2025 · OT

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

Avalanche at Canucks, Nov 9, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Avalanche beat the Canucks 5–4, but the replays lean toward the Canucks: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Avalanche won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

Final (OT)

Colorado Avalanche 5
Vancouver Canucks 4

November 9, 2025 · Rogers Arena

Luck index +61 Avalanche very lucky · −61 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. Avalanche win 4, Canucks win 6.

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

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

Avalanche win 39% of them, Canucks 61%. The line is what actually happened: Avalanche by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+13.5%
Avalanche by 27.7%
Avalanche by 117.4%
Canucks by 119.5%
Canucks by 210.6%
Canucks by 3+31.3%

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 +1.7 goals to the Avalanche: the final margin was Avalanche by 1, without the luck Canucks by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche4443.10+0.90
Canucks5543.95+0.05

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 12:46 Slashing on the Canucks (Tyler Myers): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL
P1 10:28 Tripping on the Avalanche (Josh Manson): 2 minutes on the power play +3% VAN
P1 3:13 Roughing on the Avalanche (Cale Makar): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P2 9:52 Holding on the Avalanche (Valeri Nichushkin): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN
P2 3:57 Holding on the Avalanche (Victor Olofsson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN
P3 13:15 Tripping on the Canucks (Evander Kane): 2 minutes on the power play +5% COL
P3 10:50 Holding on the Canucks (Tom Willander): 2 minutes on the power play +7% COL
P3 3:17 Cross checking on the Avalanche (Gabriel Landeskog): 2 minutes on the power play +6% VAN

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 Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:19 Nathan MacKinnon scored on a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 11% chance +15% COL –
2 P1 8:13 Linus Karlsson scored on a wrist shot from 4 feetShooting · 17% chance +12% VAN –
3 P2 18:16 Kiefer Sherwood scored on a backhand shot from 10 feetShooting · 11% chance +17% VAN –
4 P3 19:32 Artturi Lehkonen scored on a tip from 13 feetShooting · 7% chance +24% COL –
5 P3 12:34 Drew O'Connor scored on a snap shot from 29 feetShooting · 7% chance +28% VAN –
6 P3 10:13 Artturi Lehkonen scored on a snap shot from 11 feetShooting · 25% chance +24% COL –
7 P3 3:01 Jake DeBrusk scored on a tip from 6 feetShooting · 10% chance +37% VAN –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Avalanche won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% COL –

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

Avalanche 35% · Canucks 65%

Final margin
Avalanche by 1
Luck in goals
1.7 for the Avalanche
Luck-adjusted margin
Canucks by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 39% · Canucks 61% 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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