luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 19, 2025

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

Canucks at Islanders, Dec 19, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Canucks beat the Islanders 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Canucks win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 21 points of win probability to the Canucks.

The biggest swing (P1, 11:03 left): David Kampf scored on a wrist shot from 9 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Canucks.

Final

Vancouver Canucks 4
New York Islanders 1

December 19, 2025 · UBS Arena

Luck index +49 Canucks lucky · −49 Islanders

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. Canucks win 5, Islanders win 5.

  1. 1 VAN 6 NYI 2
  2. 2 VAN 5 NYI 2
  3. 3 VAN 4 NYI 2
  4. 4 VAN 2 NYI 1
  5. 5 VAN 3 NYI 2
  6. 6 VAN 1 NYI 2
  7. 7 VAN 1 NYI 2
  8. 8 VAN 0 NYI 2
  9. 9 VAN 2 NYI 5
  10. 10 VAN 1 NYI 4

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

Canucks win 51% of them, Islanders 49%. The line is what actually happened: Canucks by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canucks by 3+18.4%
Canucks by 211.0%
Canucks by 121.5%
Islanders by 123.1%
Islanders by 29.7%
Islanders by 3+16.3%

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 +1.9 goals to the Canucks: the final margin was Canucks by 3, without the luck Canucks by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canucks3832.35+0.65
Islanders3812.77−1.77

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 16:45 Too many men on the ice on the Canucks (VAN): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 15:43 Hooking on the Canucks (Kiefer Sherwood): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 5:59 Tripping on the Islanders (Marc Gatcomb): 2 minutes on the power play +3% VAN
P2 13:09 Tripping on the Islanders (Matthew Schaefer): 2 minutes on the power play +2% VAN
P2 9:56 Hooking on the Canucks (Nils Hoglander): 2 minutes on the power play +2% NYI
P2 0:41 Tripping on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power play +1% VAN
P3 0:56 Delaying game puck over glass on the Canucks (Tom Willander): 2 minutes on the power play 0% NYI

When it happened

Islanders’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Islanders were ahead in it, below while the Canucks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 16:45 Too many men on the ice on the Canucks (VAN): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NYI –
2 P1 15:43 Hooking on the Canucks (Kiefer Sherwood): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NYI –
3 P1 12:33 Brock Boeser’s wrist shot from 25 feet was savedShooting · 11% chance +2% NYI –
4 P1 11:03 David Kampf scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% VAN –
5 P1 9:25 Kiefer Sherwood scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 4% chance +14% VAN –
6 P1 5:59 Tripping on the Islanders (Marc Gatcomb): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% VAN –
7 P1 4:13 Kiefer Sherwood scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 19% chance +8% VAN –
8 P2 9:21 Jonathan Drouin’s wrist shot from 19 feet was savedShooting · 18% chance +2% VAN –

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

Canucks 74% · Islanders 26%

Final margin
Canucks by 3
Luck in goals
1.9 for the Canucks
Luck-adjusted margin
Canucks by 1.1
Replay with same day's form
Canucks 51% · Islanders 49% 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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