luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 9, 2025 · SO

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

Avalanche at Predators, Dec 9, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Predators beat the Avalanche 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Predators win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Predators.

The biggest swing (SO): the Predators won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Predators.

Final (SO)

Colorado Avalanche 3
Nashville Predators 4

December 9, 2025 · Bridgestone Arena

Luck index +49 Predators lucky · −49 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 5, Predators win 5.

  1. 1 COL 4 NSH 1
  2. 2 COL 5 NSH 2
  3. 3 COL 5 NSH 3
  4. 4 COL 3 NSH 2
  5. 5 COL 4 NSH 3
  6. 6 COL 1 NSH 2
  7. 7 COL 4 NSH 5
  8. 8 COL 0 NSH 2
  9. 9 COL 3 NSH 6
  10. 10 COL 1 NSH 5

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 49% of them, Predators 51%. The line is what actually happened: Predators by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+18.4%
Avalanche by 29.8%
Avalanche by 120.9%
Predators by 122.7%
Predators by 210.0%
Predators by 3+18.2%

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 +1.2 goals to the Predators: the final margin was Predators by 1, without the luck Avalanche by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche5433.01−0.01
Predators3732.71+0.29

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 16:59 Tripping on the Avalanche (Joel Kiviranta): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P1 8:40 Tripping on the Avalanche (Cale Makar): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P2 4:55 Tripping on the Predators (Spencer Stastney): 2 minutes on the power play +5% COL
P2 2:59 Cross checking on the Predators (Nicolas Hague): 2 minutes on the power play +6% COL
P2 0:23 Delaying game puck over glass on the Predators (Fedor Svechkov): 2 minutes on the power play +6% COL
P3 1:38 Tripping on the Predators (Erik Haula): 2 minutes on the power play +6% COL

When it happened

Predators’ chance of winning

As low as 38% and as high as 100%. 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 Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:48 Brock Nelson scored on a backhand shot from 12 feetShooting · 10% chance +14% COL –
2 P1 15:55 Jonathan Marchessault scored on a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 18% chance +13% NSH –
3 P1 14:30 Reid Schaefer scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 16% chance +13% NSH –
4 P1 9:39 Artturi Lehkonen scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 17% chance +14% COL –
5 P3 10:07 Steven Stamkos’s snap shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 25% chance +8% COL –
6 P3 7:02 Brady Skjei scored on a wrist shot from 62 feetShooting · 1% chance +35% NSH –
7 P3 0:08 Cale Makar scored on a snap shot from 53 feetShooting · 3% chance +47% COL –
8 SO The Predators won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% 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

Avalanche 54% · Predators 46%

Final margin
Predators by 1
Luck in goals
1.2 for the Predators
Luck-adjusted margin
Avalanche by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 49% · Predators 51% 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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