luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 14, 2025 · OT

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

Islanders at Mammoth, Nov 14, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Mammoth 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Islanders win 4 of 10. 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 3
Utah Mammoth 2

November 14, 2025 · Delta Center

Luck index +57 Islanders lucky · −57 Mammoth

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 4, Mammoth win 6.

  1. 1 NYI 5 UTA 1
  2. 2 NYI 6 UTA 3
  3. 3 NYI 3 UTA 2
  4. 4 NYI 5 UTA 4
  5. 5 NYI 4 UTA 5
  6. 6 NYI 4 UTA 5
  7. 7 NYI 2 UTA 4
  8. 8 NYI 4 UTA 7
  9. 9 NYI 1 UTA 4
  10. 10 NYI 0 UTA 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 43% of them, Mammoth 57%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Islanders by 3+16.5%
Islanders by 28.6%
Islanders by 118.1%
Mammoth by 118.7%
Mammoth by 210.0%
Mammoth by 3+28.2%

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 +1.4 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 1, without the luck Mammoth by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Islanders3523.22−1.22
Mammoth4823.75−1.75

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 14:04 Holding on the Islanders (Adam Boqvist): 2 minutes on the power play +4% UTA
P1 13:46 Hooking on the Mammoth (Logan Cooley): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 5:42 Too many men on the ice on the Mammoth (UTA): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 2:11 Interference on the Islanders (Matthew Schaefer): 2 minutes on the power play +4% UTA
P1 2:04 Delaying game puck over glass on the Islanders (Simon Holmstrom): 2 minutes on the power play +4% UTA
P2 9:41 Hooking on the Mammoth (Logan Cooley): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 3:05 High sticking on the Islanders (Tony DeAngelo): 2 minutes on the power play +4% UTA
P3 17:23 Tripping on the Islanders (Calum Ritchie): 2 minutes on the power play +5% UTA
P3 14:13 Hooking on the Islanders (Tony DeAngelo): 2 minutes on the power play +5% UTA
P3 11:20 Interference on the Mammoth (Jack McBain): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYI

When it happened

Mammoth’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 86%. 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 Mammoth were ahead in it, below while the Islanders were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 12:47 Emil Heineman scored on a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 22% chance +13% NYI –
2 P1 6:58 JJ Peterka scored on a tip from 7 feetShooting · 12% chance +16% UTA –
3 P1 1:25 Dylan Guenther scored on a slap shot from 35 feetShooting · 10% chance +16% UTA –
4 P3 10:00 Simon Holmstrom’s wrist shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 30% chance +9% UTA –
5 P3 6:16 Jonathan Drouin scored on a shot from 6 feetShooting · 30% chance +25% NYI –
6 P3 2:14 Matthew Schaefer’s snap shot from 24 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +6% UTA –
7 P3 2:13 Matthew Schaefer missed the net with a snap shot from 9 feetShooting · 22% chance +10% UTA –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Islanders won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% NYI –

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 40% · Mammoth 60%

Final margin
Islanders by 1
Luck in goals
1.4 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Mammoth by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Islanders 43% · Mammoth 57% 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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