luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 7, 2025

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

Blackhawks at Ducks, Dec 7, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Ducks beat the Blackhawks 7–1, and the replays back it up: with the way both teams actually played, the Ducks win 9 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 9:44 left): Jacob Trouba scored on a slap shot from 42 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Ducks.

Final

Chicago Blackhawks 1
Anaheim Ducks 7

December 7, 2025 · Honda Center

Luck index +6 Ducks about even · −6 Blackhawks

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. Blackhawks win 1, Ducks win 9.

  1. 1 CHI 5 ANA 4
  2. 2 CHI 1 ANA 3
  3. 3 CHI 3 ANA 6
  4. 4 CHI 0 ANA 4
  5. 5 CHI 0 ANA 4
  6. 6 CHI 2 ANA 7
  7. 7 CHI 1 ANA 7
  8. 8 CHI 1 ANA 8
  9. 9 CHI 2 ANA 10
  10. 10 CHI 1 ANA 11

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

Blackhawks win 6% of them, Ducks 94%. The line is what actually happened: Ducks by 6.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blackhawks by 3+0.4%
Blackhawks by 20.8%
Blackhawks by 14.9%
Ducks by 14.5%
Ducks by 24.8%
Ducks by 3+84.6%

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 +0.8 goals to the Ducks: the final margin was Ducks by 6, without the luck Ducks by 5.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blackhawks2511.11−0.11
Ducks7276.11+0.89

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 18:54 Too many men on the ice on the Ducks (ANA): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CHI
P1 7:54 Too many men on the ice on the Blackhawks (CHI): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P1 1:55 Hooking on the Blackhawks (Frank Nazar): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P2 14:52 High sticking on the Blackhawks (Connor Murphy): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P2 1:15 Delaying game puck over glass on the Blackhawks (Louis Crevier): 2 minutes on the power play 0% ANA
P3 18:28 Hooking on the Ducks (Ryan Strome): 2 minutes on the power play 0% CHI
P3 7:54 High sticking on the Blackhawks (Artyom Levshunov): 2 minutes on the power play 0% ANA

When it happened

Ducks’ 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 Ducks were ahead in it, below while the Blackhawks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:54 Too many men on the ice on the Ducks (ANA): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% CHI –
2 P1 11:53 Frank Vatrano’s snap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance +4% CHI –
3 P1 9:44 Jacob Trouba scored on a slap shot from 42 feetShooting · 4% chance +16% ANA –
4 P1 1:55 Hooking on the Blackhawks (Frank Nazar): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% ANA –
5 P2 14:52 High sticking on the Blackhawks (Connor Murphy): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% ANA –
6 P2 13:20 Mason McTavish scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 13% chance +13% ANA –
7 P2 12:37 Ryan Strome’s snap shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 33% chanceRyan Strome’s wrist shot from 12 feet was savedShooting · 12% chance +4% CHI –
8 P2 10:34 Beckett Sennecke scored on a snap shot from 37 feetShooting · 4% chance +7% ANA –

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

Blackhawks 0% · Ducks 100%

Final margin
Ducks by 6
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Ducks
Luck-adjusted margin
Ducks by 5.2
Replay with same day's form
Blackhawks 6% · Ducks 94% 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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