luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 18, 2025

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

Kings at Lightning, Dec 18, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Kings beat the Lightning 2–1, but the replays lean toward the Lightning: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 57 points of win probability to the Kings.

The biggest swing (P2, 4:02 left): Adrian Kempe scored on a backhand shot from 5 feet, worth 20 points of win probability to the Kings.

Final

Los Angeles Kings 2
Tampa Bay Lightning 1

December 18, 2025 · Benchmark International Arena

Luck index +70 Kings 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. Kings win 3, Lightning win 7.

  1. 1 LAK 7 TBL 4
  2. 2 LAK 3 TBL 2
  3. 3 LAK 1 TBL 0
  4. 4 LAK 2 TBL 3
  5. 5 LAK 2 TBL 3
  6. 6 LAK 1 TBL 3
  7. 7 LAK 1 TBL 4
  8. 8 LAK 2 TBL 5
  9. 9 LAK 1 TBL 5
  10. 10 LAK 0 TBL 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 replays ended

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

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Kings by 3+5.7%
Kings by 25.1%
Kings by 119.0%
Lightning by 120.4%
Lightning by 213.7%
Lightning by 3+36.1%

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 +2.3 goals to the Kings: the final margin was Kings by 1, without the luck Lightning by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Kings2621.53+0.47
Lightning5513.66−2.66

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 8:19 Cross checking on the Kings (Adrian Kempe): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 9:51 High sticking on the Lightning (Gage Goncalves): 2 minutes on the power play +5% LAK
P2 8:49 Holding on the Kings (Kevin Fiala): 2 minutes on the power play +5% TBL
P2 2:35 Tripping on the Kings (Mikey Anderson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% TBL
P3 12:15 Hooking on the Kings (Adrian Kempe): 2 minutes on the power play +5% TBL
P3 1:05 Holding the stick on the Kings (Corey Perry): 2 minutes on the power play +6% TBL

When it happened

Lightning’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 72%. 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 Lightning were ahead in it, below while the Kings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 7:06 Oliver Bjorkstrand scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 31% chance +12% TBL –
2 P2 14:39 Adrian Kempe scored on a wrist shot from 46 feetShooting · 3% chance +19% LAK –
3 P2 4:02 Adrian Kempe scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 15% chance +20% LAK –
4 P3 12:15 Hooking on the Kings (Adrian Kempe): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% TBL –
5 P3 12:04 Jake Guentzel’s snap shot from 12 feet was savedShooting · 18% chance +5% LAK –
6 P3 11:58 Brayden Point’s snap shot from 14 feet was savedShooting · 26% chance +8% LAK –
7 P3 1:05 Holding the stick on the Kings (Corey Perry): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% TBL –
8 P3 0:10 Brayden Point’s snap shot from 15 feet was savedShooting · 18% chance +9% LAK –

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

Kings 16% · Lightning 84%

Final margin
Kings by 1
Luck in goals
2.3 for the Kings
Luck-adjusted margin
Lightning by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Kings 30% · Lightning 70% 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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