luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 29, 2025

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

Maple Leafs at Penguins, Nov 29, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Maple Leafs beat the Penguins 7–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Maple Leafs win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 35 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

The biggest swing (P1, 8:54 left): Easton Cowan scored on a slap shot from 29 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

Final

Toronto Maple Leafs 7
Pittsburgh Penguins 2

November 29, 2025 · PPG Paints Arena

Luck index +57 Maple Leafs lucky · −57 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. Maple Leafs win 4, Penguins win 6.

  1. 1 TOR 4 PIT 1
  2. 2 TOR 4 PIT 2
  3. 3 TOR 4 PIT 3
  4. 4 TOR 5 PIT 4
  5. 5 TOR 1 PIT 2
  6. 6 TOR 3 PIT 4
  7. 7 TOR 4 PIT 6
  8. 8 TOR 0 PIT 3
  9. 9 TOR 1 PIT 4
  10. 10 TOR 0 PIT 4

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 4,000.3 replays ended

Maple Leafs win 43% of them, Penguins 57%. The line is what actually happened: Maple Leafs by 5.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Maple Leafs by 3+15.5%
Maple Leafs by 27.8%
Maple Leafs by 119.6%
Penguins by 120.0%
Penguins by 210.4%
Penguins by 3+26.7%

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 +4.6 goals to the Maple Leafs: the final margin was Maple Leafs by 5, without the luck Maple Leafs by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Maple Leafs3172.33+4.67
Penguins5823.45−1.45

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 11:54 Holding on the Maple Leafs (Dakota Mermis): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P1 4:34 Hooking on the Maple Leafs (Max Domi): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P1 1:48 Hooking on the Penguins (Connor Dewar): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TOR
P2 7:55 Roughing on the Penguins (Parker Wotherspoon): 2 minutes on the power play +1% TOR
P2 1:03 Holding on the Penguins (Bryan Rust): 2 minutes on the power play 0% TOR
P3 3:31 Tripping on the Maple Leafs (John Tavares): 2 minutes on the power play 0% PIT

When it happened

Penguins’ 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 Penguins were ahead in it, below while the Maple Leafs were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:14 Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 18% chance +14% TOR –
2 P1 11:54 Holding on the Maple Leafs (Dakota Mermis): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% PIT –
3 P1 11:46 Ben Kindel scored on a bat shot from 16 feetShooting · 16% chance +14% PIT –
4 P1 8:54 Easton Cowan scored on a slap shot from 29 feetShooting · 7% chance +16% TOR –
5 P1 4:34 Hooking on the Maple Leafs (Max Domi): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% PIT –
6 P1 1:48 Hooking on the Penguins (Connor Dewar): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% TOR –
7 P2 17:36 Bobby McMann scored on a tip from 16 feetShooting · 9% chance +14% TOR –
8 P2 15:07 Dakota Joshua scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 13% chance +8% TOR –

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

Maple Leafs 66% · Penguins 34%

Final margin
Maple Leafs by 5
Luck in goals
4.6 for the Maple Leafs
Luck-adjusted margin
Maple Leafs by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Maple Leafs 43% · Penguins 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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