luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 27, 2025

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

Rangers at Islanders, Dec 27, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Rangers 2–0, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Islanders win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 62 points of win probability to the Islanders.

The biggest swing (P1, 19:02 left): Anders Lee scored on a wrist shot from 12 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Islanders.

Final

New York Rangers 0
New York Islanders 2

December 27, 2025 · UBS Arena

Luck index +42 Islanders lucky · −42 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, Islanders win 6.

  1. 1 NYR 4 NYI 1
  2. 2 NYR 6 NYI 4
  3. 3 NYR 5 NYI 4
  4. 4 NYR 3 NYI 2
  5. 5 NYR 3 NYI 4
  6. 6 NYR 4 NYI 5
  7. 7 NYR 1 NYI 3
  8. 8 NYR 2 NYI 5
  9. 9 NYR 6 NYI 9
  10. 10 NYR 2 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 4,000 replays ended

Rangers win 42% of them, Islanders 58%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Rangers by 3+14.9%
Rangers by 28.5%
Rangers by 118.4%
Islanders by 119.5%
Islanders by 210.5%
Islanders by 3+28.1%

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 +0.7 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 2, without the luck Islanders by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Rangers4203.14−3.14
Islanders3713.25−2.25

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 16:09 Tripping on the Rangers (Vladislav Gavrikov): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI
P2 15:04 Holding the stick on the Rangers (Alexis Lafrenière): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 8:51 Hooking on the Rangers (Braden Schneider): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 6:04 Interference on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYR
P3 12:02 Interference goalkeeper on the Rangers (Will Cuylle): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYI
P3 7:25 Holding on the Rangers (Vincent Trocheck): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYI
P3 5:19 Tripping on the Islanders (Calum Ritchie): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYR
P3 3:01 Tripping on the Islanders (Bo Horvat): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NYR

When it happened

Islanders’ 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 Islanders were ahead in it, below while the Rangers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:04 Mathew Barzal’s snap shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 28% chance +4% NYR –
2 P1 19:02 Anders Lee scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 10% chance +14% NYI –
3 P3 12:02 Interference goalkeeper on the Rangers (Will Cuylle): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% NYI –
4 P3 7:25 Holding on the Rangers (Vincent Trocheck): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% NYI –
5 P3 5:19 Tripping on the Islanders (Calum Ritchie): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% NYR –
6 P3 3:45 Will Cuylle’s wrist shot from 16 feet was savedShooting · 18% chance +7% NYI –
7 P3 3:01 Tripping on the Islanders (Bo Horvat): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% NYR –
8 P3 2:27 Vincent Trocheck’s snap shot from 31 feet was savedShooting · 13% chance +5% 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

Rangers 26% · Islanders 74%

Final margin
Islanders by 2
Luck in goals
0.7 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Islanders by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Rangers 42% · Islanders 58% 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 · Rangers · Islanders

More from week 12, 2025-26

Every game of week 12, 2025-26