luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 20, 2025

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

Golden Knights at Flames, Dec 20, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Flames beat the Golden Knights 6–3, but the replays lean toward the Golden Knights: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 25 points of win probability to the Flames.

The biggest swing (P1, 16:06 left): Mikael Backlund scored on a snap shot from 8 feet, worth 13 points of win probability to the Flames.

Final

Vegas Golden Knights 3
Calgary Flames 6

December 20, 2025 · Scotiabank Saddledome

Luck index +62 Flames very lucky · −62 Golden Knights

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. Golden Knights win 6, Flames win 4.

  1. 1 VGK 5 CGY 0
  2. 2 VGK 4 CGY 1
  3. 3 VGK 4 CGY 1
  4. 4 VGK 2 CGY 0
  5. 5 VGK 2 CGY 1
  6. 6 VGK 3 CGY 2
  7. 7 VGK 1 CGY 2
  8. 8 VGK 1 CGY 2
  9. 9 VGK 2 CGY 4
  10. 10 VGK 3 CGY 6

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

Golden Knights win 62% of them, Flames 38%. The line is what actually happened: Flames by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Golden Knights by 3+30.8%
Golden Knights by 211.0%
Golden Knights by 119.9%
Flames by 120.3%
Flames by 28.2%
Flames by 3+9.8%

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 +3.0 goals to the Flames: the final margin was Flames by 3, without the luck even. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Golden Knights5733.94−0.94
Flames4152.15+2.85

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
P2 8:53 Tripping on the Flames (Morgan Frost): 2 minutes on the power play +1% VGK
P3 4:10 High sticking on the Flames (Yan Kuznetsov): 2 minutes on the power play 0% VGK

When it happened

Flames’ chance of winning

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 Flames were ahead in it, below while the Golden Knights were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 16:09 Connor Zary’s wrist shot from 11 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +2% VGK –
2 P1 16:06 Mikael Backlund scored on a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 18% chance +13% CGY –
3 P1 15:44 Tomas Hertl’s snap shot from 11 feet was savedShooting · 18% chance +3% CGY –
4 P1 11:18 Adam Klapka scored on a deflected shot from 3 feetShooting · 23% chance +10% CGY –
5 P1 9:57 Reilly Smith scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 12% chance +12% VGK –
6 P1 5:05 Brandon Saad’s wrist shot from 19 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +3% CGY –
7 P1 4:15 Ryan Lomberg scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 12% chance +12% CGY –
8 P2 11:22 Mikael Backlund scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 11% chance +7% CGY –

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

Golden Knights 48% · Flames 52%

Final margin
Flames by 3
Luck in goals
3.0 for the Flames
Luck-adjusted margin
even
Replay with same day's form
Golden Knights 62% · Flames 38% 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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