luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 9, 2025

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

Kings at Penguins, Nov 9, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Kings beat the Penguins 3–2, but the replays lean toward the Penguins: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 25 points of win probability to the Kings.

The game turned on a luck play (P3, 15:11 left): Corey Perry scored on a wrist shot from 34 feet, worth 26 points of win probability to the Kings. The biggest single swing (P3, 8:08 left): Kevin Fiala scored on a wrist shot from 7 feet.

Final

Los Angeles Kings 3
Pittsburgh Penguins 2

November 9, 2025 · PPG Paints Arena

Luck index +64 Kings very lucky · −64 Penguins

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. Kings win 4, Penguins win 6.

  1. 1 LAK 4 PIT 1
  2. 2 LAK 3 PIT 1
  3. 3 LAK 5 PIT 4
  4. 4 LAK 1 PIT 0
  5. 5 LAK 3 PIT 4
  6. 6 LAK 3 PIT 4
  7. 7 LAK 3 PIT 5
  8. 8 LAK 2 PIT 5
  9. 9 LAK 5 PIT 8
  10. 10 LAK 0 PIT 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 3,999.9 replays ended

Kings win 36% of them, Penguins 64%. The line is what actually happened: Kings by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Kings by 3+9.0%
Kings by 26.7%
Kings by 120.4%
Penguins by 122.3%
Penguins by 212.1%
Penguins by 3+29.6%

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 +0.3 goals to the Kings: the final margin was Kings by 1, without the luck Kings by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Kings4132.07+0.93
Penguins4923.19−1.19

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 5:26 Hooking on the Penguins (Sidney Crosby): 2 minutes on the power play +4% LAK
P2 17:06 Interference on the Penguins (Ryan Graves): 2 minutes on the power play +5% LAK
P2 14:08 Tripping on the Kings (Cody Ceci): 2 minutes on the power play +5% PIT
P2 12:06 High sticking on the Penguins (Danton Heinen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% LAK
P2 8:40 Hooking on the Kings (Brandt Clarke): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P2 3:20 Delaying game puck over glass on the Penguins (Joona Koppanen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% LAK

When it happened

Penguins’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 79%. 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 Penguins were ahead in it, below while the Kings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:12 Tommy Novak scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 26% chance +12% PIT –
2 P1 5:02 Anze Kopitar scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 2% chance +17% LAK –
3 P2 12:12 Anthony Mantha scored on a wrist shot from 21 feetShooting · 17% chance +17% PIT –
4 P3 15:11 The game turned hereCorey Perry scored on a wrist shot from 34 feetShooting · 6% chance +26% LAK –
5 P3 8:08 Kevin Fiala scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 13% chance +30% LAK –
6 P3 3:41 Ville Koivunen’s wrist shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +6% LAK –
7 P3 3:40 Kevin Hayes’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +6% LAK –
8 P3 1:26 Corey Perry missed the net with a wrist shot from 18 feetEmpty-net goals · 81% chance +5% PIT –

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

Kings 68% · Penguins 32%

Final margin
Kings by 1
Luck in goals
0.3 for the Kings
Luck-adjusted margin
Kings by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Kings 36% · Penguins 64% 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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