luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 28, 2025 · SO

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

Flyers at Islanders, Nov 28, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Flyers beat the Islanders 4–3, but the replays lean toward the Islanders: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 50 points of win probability to the Flyers.

The game turned on a luck play (SO): the Flyers won the shootout, worth 50 points of win probability to the Flyers.

Final (SO)

Philadelphia Flyers 4
New York Islanders 3

November 28, 2025 · UBS Arena

Luck index +67 Flyers very lucky · −67 Islanders

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. Flyers win 3, Islanders win 7.

  1. 1 PHI 6 NYI 3
  2. 2 PHI 5 NYI 4
  3. 3 PHI 4 NYI 3
  4. 4 PHI 4 NYI 5
  5. 5 PHI 0 NYI 1
  6. 6 PHI 3 NYI 5
  7. 7 PHI 1 NYI 4
  8. 8 PHI 4 NYI 7
  9. 9 PHI 0 NYI 4
  10. 10 PHI 0 NYI 6

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

Flyers win 33% of them, Islanders 67%. The line is what actually happened: Flyers by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flyers by 3+8.8%
Flyers by 27.0%
Flyers by 117.0%
Islanders by 119.9%
Islanders by 212.4%
Islanders by 3+34.8%

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 +2.1 goals to the Flyers: the final margin was Flyers by 1, without the luck Islanders by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flyers2832.16+0.84
Islanders4733.66−0.66

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 15:45 High sticking on the Flyers (Tyson Foerster): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 2:50 Tripping on the Flyers (Rodrigo Abols): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI
P1 0:04 Elbowing on the Islanders (Kyle MacLean): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P2 4:07 Tripping on the Islanders (Bo Horvat): 2 minutes on the power play +5% PHI
P2 2:35 Holding on the Flyers (Travis Konecny): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYI
P3 6:40 High sticking double minor on the Flyers (Matvei Michkov): 4 minutes on the power play +17% NYI

When it happened

Islanders’ 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 Islanders were ahead in it, below while the Flyers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:30 Tyson Foerster scored on a wrist shot from 27 feetShooting · 9% chance +15% PHI –
2 P1 11:08 Sean Couturier scored on a snap shot from 26 feetShooting · 7% chance +14% PHI –
3 P2 18:05 Trevor Zegras scored on a wrist shot from 34 feetShooting · 5% chance +10% PHI –
4 P2 14:18 Emil Heineman scored on a snap shot from 35 feetShooting · 10% chance +9% NYI –
5 P2 11:49 Matthew Schaefer scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% NYI –
6 P2 0:47 Anders Lee scored on a deflected shot from 6 feetShooting · 13% chance +22% NYI –
7 P3 6:40 High sticking double minor on the Flyers (Matvei Michkov): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +17% NYI –
8 SO The game turned hereThe Flyers won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +49% PHI –

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

Flyers 26% · Islanders 74%

Final margin
Flyers by 1
Luck in goals
2.1 for the Flyers
Luck-adjusted margin
Islanders by 1.1
Replay with same day's form
Flyers 33% · Islanders 67% 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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