luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 23, 2025

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

Devils at Islanders, Dec 23, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Devils 2–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Islanders win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 72 points of win probability to the Islanders.

The biggest swing (P3, 1:15 left): Adam Pelech scored on a slap shot from 24 feet, worth 40 points of win probability to the Islanders.

Final

New Jersey Devils 1
New York Islanders 2

December 23, 2025 · UBS Arena

Luck index +54 Islanders lucky · −54 Devils

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. Devils win 5, Islanders win 5.

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

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 3,999.9 replays ended

Devils win 54% of them, Islanders 46%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Devils by 3+26.2%
Devils by 29.3%
Devils by 118.5%
Islanders by 120.3%
Islanders by 29.4%
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 +0.8 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 1, without the luck Islanders by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Devils4914.17−3.17
Islanders4623.09−1.09

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

No power-play penalties or overturned goals in this game’s play-by-play.

When it happened

Islanders’ chance of winning

As low as 30% 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 Islanders were ahead in it, below while the Devils were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 4:25 Brett Pesce scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 8% chance +17% NJD –
2 P1 4:12 Stefan Noesen’s snap shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 39% chance +6% NYI –
3 P1 3:41 Anthony Duclair missed the net with a snap shot from 3 feetShooting · 47% chance +9% NJD –
4 P2 7:50 Simon Holmstrom scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 11% chance +20% NYI –
5 P3 7:57 Timo Meier missed the net with a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 24% chance +8% NYI –
6 P3 7:53 Timo Meier hit the left post with a deflected shot from 5 feetShooting · 16% chance +5% NYI –
7 P3 1:15 Adam Pelech scored on a slap shot from 24 feetShooting · 9% chance +40% NYI –
8 P3 0:11 Timo Meier’s snap shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 44% chance +21% NYI –

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

Devils 43% · Islanders 57%

Final margin
Islanders by 1
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Islanders by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Devils 54% · Islanders 46% 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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