luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 7, 2025 · OT

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

Golden Knights at Rangers, Dec 7, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Golden Knights beat the Rangers 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Golden Knights win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Golden Knights won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

Final (OT)

Vegas Golden Knights 3
New York Rangers 2

December 7, 2025 · Madison Square Garden

Luck index +52 Golden Knights lucky · −52 Rangers

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. Golden Knights win 5, Rangers win 5.

  1. 1 VGK 4 NYR 0
  2. 2 VGK 3 NYR 0
  3. 3 VGK 3 NYR 1
  4. 4 VGK 5 NYR 4
  5. 5 VGK 2 NYR 1
  6. 6 VGK 1 NYR 2
  7. 7 VGK 3 NYR 4
  8. 8 VGK 2 NYR 4
  9. 9 VGK 0 NYR 3
  10. 10 VGK 0 NYR 3

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 4,000.1 replays ended

Golden Knights win 48% of them, Rangers 52%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Golden Knights by 3+14.0%
Golden Knights by 29.7%
Golden Knights by 123.8%
Rangers by 124.6%
Rangers by 210.9%
Rangers by 3+16.9%

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 Golden Knights: the final margin was Golden Knights by 1, without the luck Golden Knights by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Golden Knights4522.49−0.49
Rangers3322.15−0.15

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
P2 0:50 High sticking on the Rangers (Artemi Panarin): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK

When it happened

Rangers’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 94%. 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 Rangers were ahead in it, below while the Golden Knights were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:24 Brett Howden scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 11% chance +14% VGK –
2 P2 10:52 Mika Zibanejad scored on a backhand shot from 11 feetShooting · 9% chance +19% NYR –
3 P2 6:59 Alexis Lafrenière scored on a wrist shot from 27 feetShooting · 7% chance +21% NYR –
4 P2 0:50 High sticking on the Rangers (Artemi Panarin): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% VGK –
5 P3 19:10 Pavel Dorofeyev’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 16% chance +4% NYR –
6 P3 0:54 Mark Stone missed the net with a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 18% chance +8% NYR –
7 P3 0:52 Tomas Hertl scored on a backhand shot from 12 feetShooting · 10% chance +40% VGK –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Golden Knights won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% VGK –

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

Golden Knights 56% · Rangers 44%

Final margin
Golden Knights by 1
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Golden Knights
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Golden Knights 48% · Rangers 52% 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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