luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 14, 2025 · SO

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

Flyers at Hurricanes, Dec 14, 2025: who deserved to win?

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

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

Final (SO)

Philadelphia Flyers 2
Carolina Hurricanes 3

December 14, 2025 · Lenovo Center

Luck index +47 Hurricanes lucky · −47 Flyers

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. Flyers win 5, Hurricanes win 5.

  1. 1 PHI 5 CAR 1
  2. 2 PHI 5 CAR 2
  3. 3 PHI 2 CAR 0
  4. 4 PHI 5 CAR 4
  5. 5 PHI 5 CAR 4
  6. 6 PHI 3 CAR 4
  7. 7 PHI 3 CAR 4
  8. 8 PHI 3 CAR 5
  9. 9 PHI 1 CAR 4
  10. 10 PHI 1 CAR 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 3,999.9 replays ended

Flyers win 47% of them, Hurricanes 53%. The line is what actually happened: Hurricanes by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flyers by 3+18.7%
Flyers by 29.9%
Flyers by 118.3%
Hurricanes by 120.5%
Hurricanes by 210.5%
Hurricanes by 3+22.2%

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 Hurricanes: the final margin was Hurricanes by 1, without the luck Flyers by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flyers3823.43−1.43
Hurricanes5623.17−1.17

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 16:41 Kneeing on the Flyers (Noah Juulsen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CAR
P1 12:32 Tripping on the Hurricanes (Jordan Martinook): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P1 10:01 Holding on the Hurricanes (Logan Stankoven): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P1 5:00 Roughing on the Flyers (Nikita Grebenkin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CAR
P1 3:28 Delaying game puck over glass on the Flyers (Garnet Hathaway): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CAR
P2 3:35 Tripping on the Hurricanes (Andrei Svechnikov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P2 2:22 Hooking on the Flyers (Jamie Drysdale): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CAR
P3 18:14 Slashing on the Hurricanes (Sean Walker): 2 minutes on the power play +5% PHI
P3 17:09 Tripping on the Flyers (Noah Cates): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CAR
OT 4:18 Tripping on the Flyers (Bobby Brink): 2 minutes on the power play +12% CAR

When it happened

Hurricanes’ 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 Hurricanes were ahead in it, below while the Flyers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:16 William Carrier scored on a wrist shot from 34 feetShooting · 6% chance +15% CAR –
2 P1 4:07 Taylor Hall scored on a tip from 15 feetShooting · 11% chance +12% CAR –
3 P1 0:53 Jamie Drysdale scored on a snap shot from 52 feetShooting · 3% chance +14% PHI –
4 P2 3:13 Trevor Zegras missed the net with a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 33% chance +8% CAR –
5 P3 1:52 Trevor Zegras scored on a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 11% chance +38% PHI –
6 P3 1:12 Sean Couturier’s snap shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +8% CAR –
7 SO The Hurricanes won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% CAR –
8 OT 4:18 Tripping on the Flyers (Bobby Brink): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +12% CAR –

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

Flyers 54% · Hurricanes 46%

Final margin
Hurricanes by 1
Luck in goals
1.2 for the Hurricanes
Luck-adjusted margin
Flyers by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Flyers 47% · Hurricanes 53% 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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