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.

Wild at Blue Jackets, Dec 18, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Wild beat the Blue Jackets 5–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Wild win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 18 points of win probability to the Wild.

The game turned on a luck play (P2, 3:45 left): Vladimir Tarasenko scored on a wrist shot from 21 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Wild. The biggest single swing (P3, 8:10 left): Joel Eriksson Ek scored on a tip from 2 feet.

Final

Minnesota Wild 5
Columbus Blue Jackets 2

December 18, 2025 · Nationwide Arena

Luck index +48 Wild lucky · −48 Blue Jackets

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. Wild win 5, Blue Jackets win 5.

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

Wild win 52% of them, Blue Jackets 48%. The line is what actually happened: Wild by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Wild by 3+18.8%
Wild by 210.2%
Wild by 123.1%
Blue Jackets by 122.9%
Blue Jackets by 29.9%
Blue Jackets by 3+15.1%

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 +1.5 goals to the Wild: the final margin was Wild by 3, without the luck Wild by 1.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Wild4332.48+0.52
Blue Jackets4222.26−0.26

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 17:46 High sticking on the Wild (Nicolas Aube-Kubel): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P2 8:07 Slashing on the Blue Jackets (Zachary Aston-Reese): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P3 0:56 Tripping on the Wild (Tyler Pitlick): 2 minutes on the power play 0% CBJ

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 74%. 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 Blue Jackets were ahead in it, below while the Wild were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 4:40 Zach Werenski scored on a slap shot from 29 feetShooting · 12% chance +15% CBJ –
2 P2 6:30 Ryan Hartman scored on a tip from 6 feetShooting · 15% chance +19% MIN –
3 P2 3:45 The game turned hereVladimir Tarasenko scored on a wrist shot from 21 feetShooting · 11% chance +21% MIN –
4 P2 2:21 Zach Werenski scored on a wrist shot from 36 feetShooting · 4% chance +23% CBJ –
5 P3 12:15 Adam Fantilli’s wrist shot from 17 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +5% MIN –
6 P3 8:12 Joel Eriksson Ek’s snap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 21% chance +7% CBJ –
7 P3 8:10 Joel Eriksson Ek scored on a tip from 2 feetShooting · 25% chance +26% MIN –
8 P3 2:29 Boone Jenner’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +7% MIN –

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

Wild 80% · Blue Jackets 20%

Final margin
Wild by 3
Luck in goals
1.5 for the Wild
Luck-adjusted margin
Wild by 1.5
Replay with same day's form
Wild 52% · Blue Jackets 48% 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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