luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 28, 2025

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

Islanders at Blue Jackets, Dec 28, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Blue Jackets beat the Islanders 4–2, and the replays back it up: with the way both teams actually played, the Blue Jackets win 8 of 10. The Islanders had the bounces: shooting alone was worth 12 points of win probability to the Islanders.

The biggest swing (P3, 4:33 left): Ivan Provorov scored on a snap shot from 60 feet, worth 38 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

Final

New York Islanders 2
Columbus Blue Jackets 4

December 28, 2025 · Nationwide Arena

Luck index +15 Blue Jackets about even · −15 Islanders

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. Islanders win 2, Blue Jackets win 8.

  1. 1 NYI 4 CBJ 2
  2. 2 NYI 4 CBJ 3
  3. 3 NYI 3 CBJ 4
  4. 4 NYI 1 CBJ 3
  5. 5 NYI 1 CBJ 4
  6. 6 NYI 0 CBJ 3
  7. 7 NYI 1 CBJ 5
  8. 8 NYI 2 CBJ 7
  9. 9 NYI 0 CBJ 6
  10. 10 NYI 0 CBJ 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

Islanders win 15% of them, Blue Jackets 85%. The line is what actually happened: Blue Jackets by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Islanders by 3+2.3%
Islanders by 22.7%
Islanders by 110.4%
Blue Jackets by 111.7%
Blue Jackets by 29.4%
Blue Jackets by 3+63.6%

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 +1.4 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Blue Jackets by 2, without the luck Blue Jackets by 3.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Islanders3621.52+0.48
Blue Jackets5534.79−1.79

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 10:48 Hooking on the Islanders (Mathew Barzal): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CBJ
P1 1:49 Roughing on the Blue Jackets (Mason Marchment): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 18:23 Slashing on the Islanders (Mathew Barzal): 3 minutes on the power play +7% CBJ
P2 18:17 Tripping on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P2 15:29 Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Mason Marchment): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYI
P2 4:16 Interference on the Blue Jackets (Kent Johnson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYI
P3 15:13 Slashing on the Islanders (Anders Lee): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CBJ

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ chance of winning

As low as 12% 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 Blue Jackets were ahead in it, below while the Islanders were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:51 Kirill Marchenko scored on a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 13% chance +14% CBJ –
2 P1 2:44 Max Shabanov scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 15% chance +15% NYI –
3 P2 18:23 Slashing on the Islanders (Mathew Barzal): 3 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% CBJ –
4 P2 6:36 Bo Horvat scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 6% chance +21% NYI –
5 P3 5:00 Adam Fantilli’s snap shot from 13 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +7% NYI –
6 P3 4:33 Ivan Provorov scored on a snap shot from 60 feetShooting · 2% chance +38% CBJ –
7 P3 3:46 Mathieu Olivier missed the net with a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 17% chance +7% NYI –
8 P3 3:19 Kirill Marchenko scored on a backhand shot from 22 feetShooting · 6% chance +38% CBJ –

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

Islanders 3% · Blue Jackets 97%

Final margin
Blue Jackets by 2
Luck in goals
1.4 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Blue Jackets by 3.4
Replay with same day's form
Islanders 15% · Blue Jackets 85% 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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