luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 20, 2025 · SO

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

Flyers at Rangers, Dec 20, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Rangers beat the Flyers 5–4, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Rangers win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Rangers.

The biggest swing (SO): the Rangers won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Rangers.

Final (SO)

Philadelphia Flyers 4
New York Rangers 5

December 20, 2025 · Madison Square Garden

Luck index +45 Rangers lucky · −45 Flyers

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. Flyers win 4, Rangers win 6.

  1. 1 PHI 7 NYR 4
  2. 2 PHI 2 NYR 0
  3. 3 PHI 2 NYR 1
  4. 4 PHI 2 NYR 1
  5. 5 PHI 1 NYR 2
  6. 6 PHI 2 NYR 3
  7. 7 PHI 1 NYR 3
  8. 8 PHI 2 NYR 4
  9. 9 PHI 1 NYR 4
  10. 10 PHI 0 NYR 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 replays ended

Flyers win 45% of them, Rangers 55%. The line is what actually happened: Rangers by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flyers by 3+12.5%
Flyers by 29.1%
Flyers by 122.9%
Rangers by 122.8%
Rangers by 211.7%
Rangers by 3+21.0%

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 +0.7 goals to the Rangers: the final margin was Rangers by 1, without the luck Rangers by 0.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flyers4142.09+1.91
Rangers4342.47+1.53

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 6:03 Tripping on the Flyers (Carl Grundstrom): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYR
P2 14:43 Interference on the Rangers (Will Cuylle): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P2 9:45 Slashing on the Rangers (Artemi Panarin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P2 6:12 Boarding on the Flyers (Nicolas Deslauriers): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYR
P2 3:52 Tripping on the Rangers (Noah Laba): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P3 15:44 Hooking on the Flyers (Nick Seeler): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYR
P3 3:00 Delaying game on the Flyers (Rasmus Ristolainen): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NYR
OT 4:52 Slashing on the Rangers (Artemi Panarin): 2 minutes on the power play +12% PHI
OT 0:51 Tripping on the Rangers (Scott Morrow): 2 minutes on the power play +12% PHI

When it happened

Rangers’ chance of winning

As low as 6% and as high as 100%. 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 Rangers were ahead in it, below while the Flyers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 0:36 Artemi Panarin scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 9% chance +17% NYR –
2 P2 13:18 Travis Sanheim scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 8% chance +19% PHI –
3 P2 12:55 Owen Tippett scored on a wrist shot from 45 feetShooting · 3% chance +20% PHI –
4 P2 9:42 Trevor Zegras scored on a slap shot from 39 feetShooting · 9% chance +15% PHI –
5 P2 7:37 Artemi Panarin scored on a snap shot from 38 feetShooting · 6% chance +16% NYR –
6 P2 5:24 Rodrigo Abols scored on a deflected shot from 7 feetShooting · 12% chance +15% PHI –
7 P3 2:34 Mika Zibanejad scored on a slap shot from 34 feetShooting · 8% chance +39% NYR –
8 SO The Rangers won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% NYR –

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

Flyers 43% · Rangers 57%

Final margin
Rangers by 1
Luck in goals
0.7 for the Rangers
Luck-adjusted margin
Rangers by 0.3
Replay with same day's form
Flyers 45% · Rangers 55% 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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