luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 13, 2025 · OT

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

Islanders at Golden Knights, Nov 13, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Golden Knights 4–3, but the replays lean toward the Golden Knights: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Islanders.

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

Final (OT)

New York Islanders 4
Vegas Golden Knights 3

November 13, 2025 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +66 Islanders very lucky · −66 Golden Knights

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. Islanders win 3, Golden Knights win 7.

  1. 1 NYI 5 VGK 2
  2. 2 NYI 2 VGK 1
  3. 3 NYI 5 VGK 4
  4. 4 NYI 3 VGK 4
  5. 5 NYI 4 VGK 5
  6. 6 NYI 2 VGK 4
  7. 7 NYI 3 VGK 6
  8. 8 NYI 3 VGK 6
  9. 9 NYI 1 VGK 5
  10. 10 NYI 0 VGK 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 replays ended

Islanders win 34% of them, Golden Knights 66%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Islanders by 3+10.4%
Islanders by 26.7%
Islanders by 117.2%
Golden Knights by 118.8%
Golden Knights by 211.4%
Golden Knights by 3+35.4%

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 +2.5 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 1, without the luck Golden Knights by 1.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Islanders3932.55+0.45
Golden Knights4434.46−1.46

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 10:12 Holding on the Islanders (Simon Holmstrom): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P1 2:41 Holding on the Golden Knights (Cole Reinhardt): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 18:09 Holding on the Golden Knights (Noah Hanifin): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI
P2 15:35 Too many men on the ice on the Islanders (NYI): 2 minutes on the power play +3% VGK
P2 8:04 Delaying game puck over glass on the Golden Knights (Jeremy Lauzon): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI
P2 5:12 Interference on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power play +3% VGK
P2 4:59 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Mitch Marner): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI
P3 14:46 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Jeremy Lauzon): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYI
P3 9:15 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Islanders (NYI): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
OT 2:06 Too many men on the ice on the Islanders (NYI): 2 minutes on the power play +12% VGK

When it happened

Golden Knights’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 91%. 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 Golden Knights were ahead in it, below while the Islanders were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 5:57 Emil Heineman scored on a snap shot from 39 feetShooting · 6% chance +17% NYI –
2 P1 2:01 Matthew Schaefer scored on a snap shot from 51 feetShooting · 4% chance +15% NYI –
3 P2 1:04 Shea Theodore scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 20% chance +13% VGK –
4 P3 11:37 Tomas Hertl scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 15% chance +27% VGK –
5 P3 9:15 Reilly Smith scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 9% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Islanders (NYI): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +35% VGK –
6 P3 2:37 Mathew Barzal scored on a slap shot from 34 feetShooting · 10% chance +38% NYI –
7 OT The game turned hereThe Islanders won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% NYI –
8 OT 2:06 Too many men on the ice on the Islanders (NYI): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +12% VGK –

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

Islanders 23% · Golden Knights 77%

Final margin
Islanders by 1
Luck in goals
2.4 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 1.4
Replay with same day's form
Islanders 34% · Golden Knights 66% 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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