luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 4, 2025

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

Avalanche at Islanders, Dec 4, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Avalanche 6–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 14:04 left): Kyle MacLean scored on a snap shot from 8 feet, worth 17 points of win probability to the Islanders.

Final

Colorado Avalanche 3
New York Islanders 6

December 4, 2025 · UBS Arena

Luck index +39 Islanders lucky · −39 Avalanche

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 4, Islanders win 6.

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

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

Avalanche win 39% of them, Islanders 61%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+13.8%
Avalanche by 27.9%
Avalanche by 117.0%
Islanders by 118.8%
Islanders by 211.0%
Islanders by 3+31.6%

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 +1.7 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 3, without the luck Islanders by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche5333.50−0.50
Islanders5153.80+1.20

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 14:04 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Avalanche (COL): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI
P1 7:25 Holding on the Avalanche (Martin Necas): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 18:44 Cross checking on the Avalanche (Artturi Lehkonen): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI
P2 18:13 Tripping on the Islanders (Mathew Barzal): 2 minutes on the power play +3% COL
P2 1:48 Tripping on the Avalanche (Cale Makar): 2 minutes on the power play +2% NYI
P3 11:49 Delaying game puck over glass on the Islanders (Matthew Schaefer): 2 minutes on the power play +2% COL
P3 3:18 Tripping on the Islanders (Scott Mayfield): 2 minutes on the power play +1% COL
P3 0:00 Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Avalanche (Josh Manson): 2 minutes on the power play 0% NYI

When it happened

Islanders’ 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 Islanders were ahead in it, below while the Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:04 Kyle MacLean scored on a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 14% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Avalanche (COL): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +17% NYI –
2 P1 13:19 Anthony Duclair’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 19% chanceAnthony Duclair’s bat shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +5% COL –
3 P1 13:18 Anthony Duclair’s snap shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 22% chanceAnthony Duclair’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +5% COL –
4 P1 1:40 Anders Lee scored on a snap shot from 26 feetShooting · 9% chance +13% NYI –
5 P2 13:02 Bo Horvat scored on a snap shot from 9 feetShooting · 21% chance +6% NYI –
6 P2 9:56 Martin Necas scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 14% chance +6% COL –
7 P2 1:14 Mathew Barzal scored on a backhand shot from 17 feetShooting · 12% chance +5% NYI –
8 P3 18:33 Artturi Lehkonen scored on a slap shot from 15 feetShooting · 6% chance +5% 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 24% · Islanders 76%

Final margin
Islanders by 3
Luck in goals
1.7 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Islanders by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 39% · Islanders 61% 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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