luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 2, 2025

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

Flames at Predators, Dec 2, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Predators beat the Flames 5–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Predators win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 20 points of win probability to the Predators.

The biggest swing (P1, 13:36 left): Reid Schaefer scored on a wrist shot from 8 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Predators.

Final

Calgary Flames 1
Nashville Predators 5

December 2, 2025 · Bridgestone Arena

Luck index +41 Predators lucky · −41 Flames

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. Flames win 4, Predators win 6.

  1. 1 CGY 6 NSH 3
  2. 2 CGY 4 NSH 2
  3. 3 CGY 3 NSH 2
  4. 4 CGY 3 NSH 2
  5. 5 CGY 1 NSH 2
  6. 6 CGY 1 NSH 2
  7. 7 CGY 1 NSH 3
  8. 8 CGY 0 NSH 2
  9. 9 CGY 0 NSH 3
  10. 10 CGY 0 NSH 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 replays ended

Flames win 41% of them, Predators 59%. The line is what actually happened: Predators by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flames by 3+11.4%
Flames by 27.7%
Flames by 121.5%
Predators by 122.8%
Predators by 212.9%
Predators by 3+23.7%

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 +2.7 goals to the Predators: the final margin was Predators by 4, without the luck Predators by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flames4112.16−1.16
Predators4252.55+2.45

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 12:24 Holding on the Predators (Adam Wilsby): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CGY
P1 7:57 Delaying game bench face off violation on the Flames (CGY): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P2 8:54 Hooking on the Predators (Nicolas Hague): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CGY
P3 7:30 Roughing on the Predators (Nicolas Hague): 2 minutes on the power play 0% CGY
P3 6:05 Roughing on the Flames (Blake Coleman): 2 minutes on the power play 0% NSH
P3 5:10 Tripping on the Predators (Roman Josi): 2 minutes on the power play 0% CGY
P3 4:17 High sticking on the Flames (MacKenzie Weegar): 2 minutes on the power play 0% NSH

When it happened

Predators’ chance of winning

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 Predators were ahead in it, below while the Flames were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:43 Connor Zary’s wrist shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +3% NSH –
2 P1 13:36 Reid Schaefer scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 12% chance +14% NSH –
3 P1 12:24 Holding on the Predators (Adam Wilsby): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% CGY –
4 P1 7:57 Delaying game bench face off violation on the Flames (CGY): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NSH –
5 P1 3:45 Jonathan Huberdeau’s backhand shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 14% chance +3% NSH –
6 P2 14:56 Steven Stamkos scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 15% chance +12% NSH –
7 P2 8:54 Hooking on the Predators (Nicolas Hague): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% CGY –
8 P2 5:35 Jonathan Marchessault scored on a wrist shot from 36 feetShooting · 6% chance +7% NSH –

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

Flames 25% · Predators 75%

Final margin
Predators by 4
Luck in goals
2.7 for the Predators
Luck-adjusted margin
Predators by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Flames 41% · Predators 59% 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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