2025-26 regular season · December 16, 2025
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Blackhawks at Maple Leafs, Dec 16, 2025: who deserved to win?
The Maple Leafs beat the Blackhawks 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Maple Leafs win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 36 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.
The biggest swing (P3, 3:09 left): Auston Matthews scored on a wrist shot from 13 feet, worth 36 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.
Final
 Chicago Blackhawks | 2 |
|---|---|
 Toronto Maple Leafs | 3 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +41 Maple Leafs lucky · −41 Blackhawks
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. Blackhawks win 4, Maple Leafs win 6.
- 1 CHI 3 TOR 0
- 2 CHI 4 TOR 2
- 3 CHI 1 TOR 0
- 4 CHI 2 TOR 1
- 5 CHI 0 TOR 1
- 6 CHI 3 TOR 4
- 7 CHI 2 TOR 4
- 8 CHI 1 TOR 3
- 9 CHI 2 TOR 5
- 10 CHI 0 TOR 4
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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 4,000.2 replays ended
Blackhawks win 41% of them, Maple Leafs 59%. The line is what actually happened: Maple Leafs by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Blackhawks by 3+ | 8.8% |
| Blackhawks by 2 | 9.3% |
| Blackhawks by 1 | 22.9% |
| Maple Leafs by 1 | 25.3% |
| Maple Leafs by 2 | 12.3% |
| Maple Leafs by 3+ | 21.3% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Blackhawks | 31 | 2 | 1.61 | +0.39 |
 Maple Leafs | 42 | 3 | 2.22 | +0.78 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 8:33 | A Blackhawks goal came off the board on review (goal interference) | +16% TOR |
| P1 5:32 | Tripping on the Blackhawks (Connor Murphy): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% TOR |
| P2 13:25 | High sticking on the Maple Leafs (Dakota Joshua): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% CHI |
| P2 1:16 | Interference on the Blackhawks (Alex Vlasic): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% TOR |
| P3 3:39 | Holding the stick on the Blackhawks (Dominic Toninato): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% TOR |
When it happened
Maple Leafs’ chance of winning
As low as 5% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 9:39 | Wyatt Kaiser scored on a wrist shot from 34 feetShooting · 7% chance | +16% CHI | – |
| 2 | P1 8:33 | A Blackhawks goal came off the board on review (goal interference)Overturned goals | +16% TOR | – |
| 3 | P1 5:32 | Tripping on the Blackhawks (Connor Murphy): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% TOR | – |
| 4 | P1 5:02 | Jason Dickinson scored on a wrist shot from 27 feetShooting · 10% chance | +14% CHI | – |
| 5 | P3 10:01 | Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored on a wrist shot from 56 feetShooting · 1% chance | +14% TOR | – |
| 6 | P3 3:39 | Holding the stick on the Blackhawks (Dominic Toninato): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +6% TOR | – |
| 7 | P3 3:09 | Auston Matthews scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 12% chance | +36% TOR | – |
| 8 | P3 3:01 | Dakota Joshua scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 12% chance | +36% TOR | – |
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
Blackhawks 38% · Maple Leafs 62%
- Final margin
- Maple Leafs by 1
- Luck in goals
- 0.3 for the Maple Leafs
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Maple Leafs by 0.7
- Replay with same day's form
- Blackhawks 41% · Maple Leafs 59% unchanged: why
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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