luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 1, 2025

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

Blue Jackets at Devils, Dec 1, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Blue Jackets beat the Devils 5–3, but the replays lean toward the Devils: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 41 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

The biggest swing (P3, 13:20 left): Charlie Coyle scored on a backhand shot from 10 feet, worth 27 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

Final

Columbus Blue Jackets 5
New Jersey Devils 3

December 1, 2025 · Prudential Center

Luck index +62 Blue Jackets very lucky · −62 Devils

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. Blue Jackets win 4, Devils win 6.

  1. 1 CBJ 4 NJD 1
  2. 2 CBJ 6 NJD 4
  3. 3 CBJ 2 NJD 1
  4. 4 CBJ 4 NJD 3
  5. 5 CBJ 3 NJD 4
  6. 6 CBJ 2 NJD 3
  7. 7 CBJ 1 NJD 2
  8. 8 CBJ 4 NJD 6
  9. 9 CBJ 2 NJD 5
  10. 10 CBJ 1 NJD 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

Blue Jackets win 38% of them, Devils 62%. The line is what actually happened: Blue Jackets by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blue Jackets by 3+8.9%
Blue Jackets by 27.7%
Blue Jackets by 121.9%
Devils by 122.5%
Devils by 213.5%
Devils by 3+25.6%

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 +1.8 goals to the Blue Jackets: the final margin was Blue Jackets by 2, without the luck Blue Jackets by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blue Jackets3151.87+3.13
Devils5233.36−0.36

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 19:20 Hooking on the Blue Jackets (Zach Werenski): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NJD
P1 11:37 Hooking on the Devils (Brenden Dillon): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CBJ
P1 5:17 Cross checking on the Blue Jackets (Brendan Smith): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NJD
P1 0:33 Hooking on the Devils (Dougie Hamilton): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P2 18:59 Slashing on the Blue Jackets (Adam Fantilli): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NJD
P2 16:02 Cross checking on the Devils (Connor Brown): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CBJ
P2 14:59 Roughing on the Blue Jackets (Damon Severson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NJD
P3 9:15 Slashing on the Blue Jackets (Cole Sillinger): 2 minutes on the power play +2% NJD

When it happened

Devils’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 83%. 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 Devils were ahead in it, below while the Blue Jackets were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:34 Nico Hischier scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 2% chance +15% NJD –
2 P1 16:57 Ondrej Palat scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 14% chance +11% NJD –
3 P1 10:06 Denton Mateychuk scored on a tip from 16 feetShooting · 12% chance +12% CBJ –
4 P2 18:32 Sean Monahan scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 14% chance +16% CBJ –
5 P3 13:20 Charlie Coyle scored on a backhand shot from 10 feetShooting · 11% chance +27% CBJ –
6 P3 12:46 Sean Monahan scored on a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 9% chance +14% CBJ –
7 P3 8:09 Timo Meier scored on a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 12% chance +12% NJD –
8 P3 6:29 Miles Wood scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 12% chance +10% CBJ –

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

Blue Jackets 55% · Devils 45%

Final margin
Blue Jackets by 2
Luck in goals
1.8 for the Blue Jackets
Luck-adjusted margin
Blue Jackets by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Blue Jackets 38% · Devils 62% 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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