luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 13, 2025 · SO

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

Lightning at Islanders, Dec 13, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Lightning 3–2, but the replays lean toward the Lightning: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Islanders.

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

Final (SO)

Tampa Bay Lightning 2
New York Islanders 3

December 13, 2025 · UBS Arena

Luck index +70 Islanders very lucky · −70 Lightning

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. Lightning win 7, Islanders win 3.

  1. 1 TBL 8 NYI 2
  2. 2 TBL 7 NYI 3
  3. 3 TBL 5 NYI 2
  4. 4 TBL 4 NYI 1
  5. 5 TBL 4 NYI 2
  6. 6 TBL 5 NYI 4
  7. 7 TBL 3 NYI 2
  8. 8 TBL 3 NYI 4
  9. 9 TBL 3 NYI 4
  10. 10 TBL 2 NYI 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 4,000.1 replays ended

Lightning win 70% of them, Islanders 30%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+42.8%
Lightning by 211.6%
Lightning by 115.9%
Islanders by 115.8%
Islanders by 25.4%
Islanders by 3+8.5%

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 +2.6 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 1, without the luck Lightning by 1.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning4924.35−2.35
Islanders2922.16−0.16

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 18:48 Interference on the Lightning (Brayden Point): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 18:15 Hooking on the Islanders (Max Shabanov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P1 17:49 Hooking on the Lightning (Charle-Edouard D'Astous): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 0:00 Abuse of officials on the Lightning (Brandon Hagel): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI
P2 18:38 Too many men on the ice on the Islanders (NYI): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TBL
P2 11:43 Holding on the Islanders (Travis Mitchell): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TBL
P2 10:40 Tripping on the Islanders (Casey Cizikas): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TBL
P2 6:10 Tripping on the Islanders (Simon Holmstrom): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P3 14:59 Tripping on the Lightning (Charle-Edouard D'Astous): 2 minutes on the power play +7% NYI

When it happened

Islanders’ 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 Islanders were ahead in it, below while the Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 16:55 Matthew Schaefer scored on a wrist shot from 28 feetShooting · 9% chance +14% NYI –
2 P1 9:44 Calum Ritchie scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 10% chance +12% NYI –
3 P2 9:47 Darren Raddysh scored on a slap shot from 37 feetShooting · 11% chance +13% TBL –
4 P3 16:40 J.J. Moser scored on a wrist shot from 28 feetShooting · 6% chance +25% TBL –
5 P3 14:59 Tripping on the Lightning (Charle-Edouard D'Astous): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% NYI –
6 P3 12:33 Kyle MacLean’s backhand shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 34% chance +10% TBL –
7 P3 8:38 Mathew Barzal’s snap shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 30% chance +10% TBL –
8 SO The Islanders won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% NYI –

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

Lightning 83% · Islanders 17%

Final margin
Islanders by 1
Luck in goals
2.6 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Lightning by 1.6
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 70% · Islanders 30% 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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