luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 27, 2025 · SO

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

Avalanche at Golden Knights, Dec 27, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Avalanche beat the Golden Knights 6–5, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Avalanche win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 50 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

The game turned on a luck play (SO): the Avalanche won the shootout, worth 50 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

Final (SO)

Colorado Avalanche 6
Vegas Golden Knights 5

December 27, 2025 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +44 Avalanche lucky · −44 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. Avalanche win 6, Golden Knights win 4.

  1. 1 COL 6 VGK 1
  2. 2 COL 6 VGK 2
  3. 3 COL 4 VGK 1
  4. 4 COL 5 VGK 3
  5. 5 COL 5 VGK 4
  6. 6 COL 5 VGK 4
  7. 7 COL 4 VGK 5
  8. 8 COL 3 VGK 4
  9. 9 COL 4 VGK 6
  10. 10 COL 0 VGK 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 3,999.9 replays ended

Avalanche win 56% of them, Golden Knights 44%. The line is what actually happened: Avalanche by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+27.2%
Avalanche by 210.6%
Avalanche by 118.3%
Golden Knights by 119.5%
Golden Knights by 28.6%
Golden Knights by 3+15.9%

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 Avalanche: the final margin was Avalanche by 1, without the luck Avalanche by 0.8. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche6554.13+0.87
Golden Knights3853.03+1.97

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 8:30 Delaying game puck over glass on the Avalanche (Cale Makar): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P1 5:02 Hooking on the Golden Knights (Zach Whitecloud): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL
P3 14:08 Too many men on the ice on the Avalanche (COL): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
P3 9:24 Interference on the Avalanche (Josh Manson): 2 minutes on the power play +8% VGK

When it happened

Golden Knights’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 92%. 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 Golden Knights were ahead in it, below while the Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 14:41 Samuel Girard scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 3% chance +14% COL –
2 P2 9:33 Martin Necas scored on a wrist shot from 39 feetShooting · 4% chance +20% COL –
3 P2 8:24 Ben Hutton scored on a slap shot from 42 feetShooting · 5% chance +20% VGK –
4 P2 7:55 Brett Howden scored on a tip from 14 feetShooting · 7% chance +14% VGK –
5 P3 16:08 Martin Necas scored on a wrist shot from 40 feetShooting · 3% chance +14% COL –
6 P3 4:00 Colton Sissons scored on a backhand shot from 6 feetShooting · 13% chance +34% VGK –
7 P3 1:57 Artturi Lehkonen scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 22% chance +33% COL –
8 SO The game turned hereThe Avalanche won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +49% COL –

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 67% · Golden Knights 33%

Final margin
Avalanche by 1
Luck in goals
0.2 for the Avalanche
Luck-adjusted margin
Avalanche by 0.8
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 56% · Golden Knights 44% 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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