luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 23, 2025

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

Avalanche at Blackhawks, Nov 23, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Avalanche beat the Blackhawks 1–0, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Avalanche win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 40 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

The biggest swing (P2, 1:39 left): Cale Makar scored on a wrist shot from 33 feet, worth 23 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

Final

Colorado Avalanche 1
Chicago Blackhawks 0

November 23, 2025 · United Center

Luck index +47 Avalanche lucky · −47 Blackhawks

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 5, Blackhawks win 5.

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

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

Avalanche win 53% of them, Blackhawks 47%. The line is what actually happened: Avalanche by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+17.9%
Avalanche by 211.2%
Avalanche by 124.4%
Blackhawks by 123.8%
Blackhawks by 28.9%
Blackhawks by 3+13.9%

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 Avalanche: the final margin was Avalanche by 1, without the luck Avalanche by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche4212.18−1.18
Blackhawks3602.16−2.16

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 16:24 Interference on the Blackhawks (Louis Crevier): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL
P1 8:32 Tripping on the Avalanche (Josh Manson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CHI
P1 2:45 Roughing on the Avalanche (Brock Nelson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CHI
P2 11:15 Slashing on the Blackhawks (Jason Dickinson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% COL
P2 7:02 Tripping on the Blackhawks (Sam Rinzel): 2 minutes on the power play +5% COL

When it happened

Blackhawks’ 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 Blackhawks were ahead in it, below while the Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 8:32 Tripping on the Avalanche (Josh Manson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% CHI –
2 P1 2:45 Roughing on the Avalanche (Brock Nelson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% CHI –
3 P2 11:15 Slashing on the Blackhawks (Jason Dickinson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% COL –
4 P2 7:02 Tripping on the Blackhawks (Sam Rinzel): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% COL –
5 P2 1:39 Cale Makar scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 6% chance +23% COL –
6 P3 4:06 Teuvo Teravainen’s snap shot from 21 feet was savedShooting · 12% chance +5% COL –
7 P3 2:47 Ryan Greene’s deflected shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 12% chance +5% COL –
8 P3 0:43 Frank Nazar’s snap shot from 9 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance +10% 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 65% · Blackhawks 35%

Final margin
Avalanche by 1
Luck in goals
0.3 for the Avalanche
Luck-adjusted margin
Avalanche by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 53% · Blackhawks 47% 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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