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.

Rangers at Predators, Dec 21, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Predators beat the Rangers 2–1, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10. The Rangers had the bounces: shooting alone was worth 15 points of win probability to the Rangers.

The biggest swing (P2, 9:16 left): Filip Forsberg scored on a wrist shot from 35 feet, worth 20 points of win probability to the Predators.

Final

New York Rangers 1
Nashville Predators 2

December 21, 2025 · Bridgestone Arena

Luck index +37 Predators lucky · −37 Rangers

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. Rangers win 4, Predators win 6.

  1. 1 NYR 3 NSH 0
  2. 2 NYR 5 NSH 3
  3. 3 NYR 4 NSH 3
  4. 4 NYR 2 NSH 1
  5. 5 NYR 1 NSH 2
  6. 6 NYR 3 NSH 4
  7. 7 NYR 2 NSH 4
  8. 8 NYR 1 NSH 4
  9. 9 NYR 0 NSH 3
  10. 10 NYR 0 NSH 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

Rangers win 37% of them, Predators 63%. The line is what actually happened: Predators by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Rangers by 3+7.7%
Rangers by 27.1%
Rangers by 122.0%
Predators by 124.1%
Predators by 212.3%
Predators by 3+26.8%

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 +0.2 goals to the Rangers: the final margin was Predators by 1, without the luck Predators by 1.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Rangers3011.62−0.62
Predators4212.42−1.42

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 7:49 Interference on the Rangers (Will Borgen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P2 5:13 Cross checking on the Predators (Cole Smith): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYR
P2 1:52 Hooking on the Rangers (Artemi Panarin): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NSH
P3 14:07 High sticking on the Predators (Michael McCarron): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYR
P3 3:59 Delaying game puck over glass on the Predators (Filip Forsberg): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NYR

When it happened

Predators’ 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 Predators were ahead in it, below while the Rangers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 7:49 Interference on the Rangers (Will Borgen): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NSH –
2 P2 12:50 Filip Forsberg missed the net with a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 18% chance +4% NYR –
3 P2 9:16 Filip Forsberg scored on a wrist shot from 35 feetShooting · 5% chance +20% NSH –
4 P2 5:13 Cross checking on the Predators (Cole Smith): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NYR –
5 P2 1:52 Hooking on the Rangers (Artemi Panarin): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% NSH –
6 P3 14:07 High sticking on the Predators (Michael McCarron): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% NYR –
7 P3 3:59 Delaying game puck over glass on the Predators (Filip Forsberg): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% NYR –
8 P3 3:23 Alexis Lafrenière missed the net with a tip from 6 feetShooting · 15% chance +6% NSH –

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

Rangers 24% · Predators 76%

Final margin
Predators by 1
Luck in goals
0.2 for the Rangers
Luck-adjusted margin
Predators by 1.2
Replay with same day's form
Rangers 37% · Predators 63% 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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