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.

Rangers at Senators, Dec 4, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Rangers beat the Senators 4–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Rangers win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 16 points of win probability to the Rangers.

The biggest swing (P2, 12:36 left): Will Borgen scored on a wrist shot from 44 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Rangers.

Final

New York Rangers 4
Ottawa Senators 2

December 4, 2025 · Canadian Tire Centre

Luck index +49 Rangers lucky · −49 Senators

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. Rangers win 5, Senators win 5.

  1. 1 NYR 4 OTT 0
  2. 2 NYR 3 OTT 0
  3. 3 NYR 5 OTT 3
  4. 4 NYR 3 OTT 2
  5. 5 NYR 5 OTT 4
  6. 6 NYR 2 OTT 3
  7. 7 NYR 2 OTT 3
  8. 8 NYR 2 OTT 3
  9. 9 NYR 3 OTT 6
  10. 10 NYR 2 OTT 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 3,999.9 replays ended

Rangers win 51% of them, Senators 49%. The line is what actually happened: Rangers by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Rangers by 3+16.5%
Rangers by 210.4%
Rangers by 123.6%
Senators by 123.8%
Senators by 210.1%
Senators by 3+15.4%

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 +0.6 goals to the Senators: the final margin was Rangers by 2, without the luck Rangers by 2.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Rangers3632.29+0.71
Senators4322.38−0.38

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 2:17 Holding on the Rangers (Will Cuylle): 2 minutes on the power play +3% OTT
P2 7:47 Cross checking on the Senators (Tim Stützle): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYR
P3 11:10 Elbowing on the Rangers (Will Borgen): 2 minutes on the power play +2% OTT
P3 7:51 Slashing on the Rangers (J.T. Miller): 2 minutes on the power play +2% OTT

When it happened

Senators’ 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 Senators were ahead in it, below while the Rangers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 16:41 Mika Zibanejad scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 12% chance +14% NYR –
2 P1 10:15 Vladislav Gavrikov scored on a snap shot from 32 feetShooting · 6% chance +14% NYR –
3 P1 2:17 Holding on the Rangers (Will Cuylle): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% OTT –
4 P1 1:30 Dylan Cozens scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% OTT –
5 P2 13:18 Matthew Robertson’s snap shot from 18 feet was savedShooting · 20% chance +3% OTT –
6 P2 12:36 Will Borgen scored on a wrist shot from 44 feetShooting · 3% chance +16% NYR –
7 P3 6:52 Drake Batherson scored on a deflected shot from 7 feetShooting · 12% chance +11% OTT –
8 P3 0:54 Artemi Panarin missed the net with a wrist shot from 23 feetEmpty-net goals · 79% chance +4% OTT –

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

Rangers 93% · Senators 7%

Final margin
Rangers by 2
Luck in goals
0.6 for the Senators
Luck-adjusted margin
Rangers by 2.6
Replay with same day's form
Rangers 51% · Senators 49% 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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