luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 21, 2025

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

Avalanche at Wild, Dec 21, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Avalanche beat the Wild 5–1, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P2, 15:52 left): A Wild goal came off the board on review (off side), worth 18 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

Final

Colorado Avalanche 5
Minnesota Wild 1

December 21, 2025 · Grand Casino Arena

Luck index +40 Avalanche lucky · −40 Wild

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. Avalanche win 6, Wild win 4.

  1. 1 COL 5 MIN 0
  2. 2 COL 4 MIN 0
  3. 3 COL 5 MIN 2
  4. 4 COL 7 MIN 5
  5. 5 COL 5 MIN 4
  6. 6 COL 3 MIN 2
  7. 7 COL 3 MIN 4
  8. 8 COL 5 MIN 6
  9. 9 COL 3 MIN 5
  10. 10 COL 1 MIN 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Avalanche win 60% of them, Wild 40%. The line is what actually happened: Avalanche by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+32.0%
Avalanche by 210.2%
Avalanche by 118.2%
Wild by 118.3%
Wild by 28.4%
Wild by 3+13.0%

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 +1.5 goals to the Avalanche: the final margin was Avalanche by 4, without the luck Avalanche by 2.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche6043.70+0.30
Wild5012.98−1.98

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 15:04 Interference on the Avalanche (Josh Manson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P1 10:57 Hooking on the Wild (Kirill Kaprizov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL
P2 15:52 A Wild goal came off the board on review (off side) +18% COL
P2 9:57 High sticking on the Avalanche (Jack Drury): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 7:13 Interference on the Wild (Vladimir Tarasenko): 2 minutes on the power play +5% COL
P2 4:53 Interference on the Wild (Marcus Foligno): 4 minutes on the power play +6% COL
P3 10:30 Holding on the Avalanche (Gabriel Landeskog): 2 minutes on the power play +2% MIN

When it happened

Wild’ 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 Wild were ahead in it, below while the Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 1:32 Martin Necas scored on a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 16% chance +16% COL –
2 P2 15:52 A Wild goal came off the board on review (off side)Overturned goals +18% COL –
3 P2 9:57 High sticking on the Avalanche (Jack Drury): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% MIN –
4 P2 7:13 Interference on the Wild (Vladimir Tarasenko): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% COL –
5 P2 6:23 Nathan MacKinnon scored on a slap shot from 29 feetShooting · 19% chance +13% COL –
6 P2 4:53 Interference on the Wild (Marcus Foligno): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% COL –
7 P2 1:27 Cale Makar scored on a snap shot from 49 feetShooting · 5% chance +7% COL –
8 P3 14:45 Ryan Hartman scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 15% chance +5% 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

Avalanche 89% · Wild 11%

Final margin
Avalanche by 4
Luck in goals
1.5 for the Avalanche
Luck-adjusted margin
Avalanche by 2.5
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 60% · Wild 40% 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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