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.

Flames at Oilers, Dec 23, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Oilers beat the Flames 5–1, and the replays back it up: with the way both teams actually played, the Oilers win 8 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 4:02 left): MacKenzie Weegar scored on a snap shot from 43 feet, worth 17 points of win probability to the Flames.

Final

Calgary Flames 1
Edmonton Oilers 5

December 23, 2025 · Rogers Place

Luck index +18 Oilers about even · −18 Flames

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. Flames win 2, Oilers win 8.

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

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

Flames win 18% of them, Oilers 82%. The line is what actually happened: Oilers by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flames by 3+3.3%
Flames by 22.4%
Flames by 111.9%
Oilers by 112.2%
Oilers by 29.7%
Oilers by 3+60.5%

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 +0.9 goals to the Oilers: the final margin was Oilers by 4, without the luck Oilers by 3.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flames3111.88−0.88
Oilers5454.73+0.27

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 2:50 Holding on the Oilers (Vasily Podkolzin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P1 1:46 Slashing on the Flames (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% EDM
P2 18:52 Hooking on the Flames (Matt Coronato): 2 minutes on the power play +4% EDM
P2 14:12 Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Flames (MacKenzie Weegar): 2 minutes on the power play +3% EDM
P2 4:30 Holding on the Oilers (Connor McDavid): 2 minutes on the power play +1% CGY
P3 14:45 Tripping on the Flames (Joel Hanley): 2 minutes on the power play +1% EDM
P3 13:06 Delaying game puck over glass on the Oilers (Alec Regula): 2 minutes on the power play 0% CGY
P3 10:32 Tripping on the Flames (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play 0% EDM
P3 7:48 Cross checking on the Oilers (Darnell Nurse): 2 minutes on the power play 0% CGY
P3 0:07 Cross checking on the Flames (Ryan Lomberg): 2 minutes on the power play 0% EDM

When it happened

Oilers’ 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 Oilers were ahead in it, below while the Flames were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:12 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 15% chance +14% EDM –
2 P1 4:02 MacKenzie Weegar scored on a snap shot from 43 feetShooting · 5% chance +17% CGY –
3 P1 2:50 Holding on the Oilers (Vasily Podkolzin): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% CGY –
4 P1 1:46 Slashing on the Flames (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% EDM –
5 P1 0:17 Leon Draisaitl scored on a wrist shot from 16 feetShooting · 13% chance +16% EDM –
6 P2 18:52 Hooking on the Flames (Matt Coronato): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% EDM –
7 P2 18:01 Leon Draisaitl scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 20% chance +11% EDM –
8 P2 8:04 Zach Hyman scored on a tip from 5 feetShooting · 12% chance +6% EDM –

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

Flames 5% · Oilers 95%

Final margin
Oilers by 4
Luck in goals
0.9 for the Oilers
Luck-adjusted margin
Oilers by 3.1
Replay with same day's form
Flames 18% · Oilers 82% 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.

All week 12 2025-26 games · Flames · Oilers

More from week 12, 2025-26

Every game of week 12, 2025-26