luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 9, 2025

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

Devils at Senators, Dec 9, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Devils beat the Senators 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Devils win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 30 points of win probability to the Devils.

The biggest swing (P3, 7:36 left): Cody Glass scored on a wrist shot from 12 feet, worth 32 points of win probability to the Devils.

Final

New Jersey Devils 4
Ottawa Senators 3

December 9, 2025 · Canadian Tire Centre

Luck index +59 Devils lucky · −59 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. Devils win 4, Senators win 6.

  1. 1 NJD 6 OTT 3
  2. 2 NJD 3 OTT 1
  3. 3 NJD 4 OTT 3
  4. 4 NJD 3 OTT 2
  5. 5 NJD 1 OTT 2
  6. 6 NJD 1 OTT 2
  7. 7 NJD 0 OTT 2
  8. 8 NJD 2 OTT 5
  9. 9 NJD 0 OTT 3
  10. 10 NJD 1 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 4,000.1 replays ended

Devils win 41% of them, Senators 59%. The line is what actually happened: Devils by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Devils by 3+12.7%
Devils by 28.2%
Devils by 119.8%
Senators by 121.2%
Senators by 211.5%
Senators by 3+26.7%

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 +1.5 goals to the Devils: the final margin was Devils by 1, without the luck Senators by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Devils4342.42+1.58
Senators5833.36−0.36

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 19:24 High sticking on the Devils (Stefan Noesen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P1 18:14 Delaying game puck over glass on the Senators (Nikolas Matinpalo): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NJD
P1 8:29 Tripping on the Devils (Brenden Dillon): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P2 13:54 High sticking on the Senators (Artem Zub): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NJD
P2 10:28 Slashing on the Devils (Nico Hischier): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P3 13:14 Interference goalkeeper on the Senators (Brady Tkachuk): 2 minutes on the power play +7% NJD

When it happened

Senators’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 71%. 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 Devils were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:24 Drake Batherson scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 22% chance +12% OTT –
2 P1 14:51 Simon Nemec scored on a slap shot from 42 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% NJD –
3 P1 7:01 Tim Stützle scored on a wrist shot from 34 feetShooting · 9% chance +16% OTT –
4 P1 2:01 Arseny Gritsyuk scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 13% chance +16% NJD –
5 P2 15:39 Paul Cotter scored on a backhand shot from 6 feetShooting · 17% chance +17% NJD –
6 P2 9:25 Drake Batherson scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 19% chance +18% OTT –
7 P3 7:36 Cody Glass scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 9% chance +32% NJD –
8 P3 6:49 Claude Giroux’s wrist shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance +8% NJD –

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

Devils 34% · Senators 66%

Final margin
Devils by 1
Luck in goals
1.5 for the Devils
Luck-adjusted margin
Senators by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Devils 41% · Senators 59% 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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