luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

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

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

Mammoth at Penguins, Dec 14, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Mammoth beat the Penguins 5–4, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Penguins had the bounces: shooting alone was worth 36 points of win probability to the Penguins.

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

Final (OT)

Utah Mammoth 5
Pittsburgh Penguins 4

December 14, 2025 · PPG Paints Arena

Luck index +28 Mammoth lucky · −28 Penguins

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. Mammoth win 7, Penguins win 3.

  1. 1 UTA 6 PIT 1
  2. 2 UTA 5 PIT 1
  3. 3 UTA 3 PIT 0
  4. 4 UTA 3 PIT 0
  5. 5 UTA 3 PIT 1
  6. 6 UTA 2 PIT 1
  7. 7 UTA 1 PIT 0
  8. 8 UTA 0 PIT 1
  9. 9 UTA 1 PIT 2
  10. 10 UTA 1 PIT 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

Mammoth win 72% of them, Penguins 28%. The line is what actually happened: Mammoth by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Mammoth by 3+38.5%
Mammoth by 213.1%
Mammoth by 120.3%
Penguins by 119.7%
Penguins by 25.0%
Penguins by 3+3.3%

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 +0.4 goals to the Penguins: the final margin was Mammoth by 1, without the luck Mammoth by 1.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Mammoth5843.14+0.86
Penguins2241.24+2.76

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 15:30 Hooking on the Penguins (Ben Kindel): 2 minutes on the power play +3% UTA
P1 10:42 Tripping on the Mammoth (Nate Schmidt): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PIT
P1 3:27 Roughing on the Mammoth (Ian Cole): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PIT
P2 10:56 Hooking on the Penguins (Ville Koivunen): 2 minutes on the power play +1% UTA
P2 5:49 Interference on the Penguins (Connor Clifton): 2 minutes on the power play +1% UTA
P3 14:25 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Penguins (PIT): 2 minutes on the power play +7% UTA
P3 9:08 Hooking on the Penguins (Bryan Rust): 2 minutes on the power play +6% UTA

When it happened

Penguins’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 98%. 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 Penguins were ahead in it, below while the Mammoth were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:12 Justin Brazeau scored on a backhand shot from 17 feetShooting · 6% chance +14% PIT –
2 P1 4:39 Bryan Rust scored on a backhand shot from 13 feetShooting · 6% chance +13% PIT –
3 P2 14:20 Ben Kindel scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 14% chance +7% PIT –
4 P3 18:38 Michael Carcone scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 2% chance +14% UTA –
5 P3 14:25 Sean Durzi scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 3% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Penguins (PIT): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +34% UTA –
6 P3 12:54 Michael Carcone scored on a wrist shot from 25 feetShooting · 7% chance +28% UTA –
7 P3 5:54 Justin Brazeau scored on a tip from 9 feetShooting · 9% chance +34% PIT –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Mammoth won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% UTA –

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

Mammoth 84% · Penguins 16%

Final margin
Mammoth by 1
Luck in goals
0.4 for the Penguins
Luck-adjusted margin
Mammoth by 1.4
Replay with same day's form
Mammoth 72% · Penguins 28% 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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