luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 29, 2025

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

Wild at Golden Knights, Dec 29, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Wild beat the Golden Knights 5–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Wild win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 24 points of win probability to the Wild.

The biggest swing (P1, 19:34 left): Marcus Johansson scored on a snap shot from 33 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Wild.

Final

Minnesota Wild 5
Vegas Golden Knights 2

December 29, 2025 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +51 Wild lucky · −51 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. Wild win 5, Golden Knights win 5.

  1. 1 MIN 4 VGK 1
  2. 2 MIN 4 VGK 2
  3. 3 MIN 3 VGK 1
  4. 4 MIN 5 VGK 4
  5. 5 MIN 3 VGK 2
  6. 6 MIN 0 VGK 1
  7. 7 MIN 3 VGK 4
  8. 8 MIN 1 VGK 3
  9. 9 MIN 2 VGK 5
  10. 10 MIN 1 VGK 5

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

Wild win 49% of them, Golden Knights 51%. The line is what actually happened: Wild by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Wild by 3+15.8%
Wild by 211.0%
Wild by 122.3%
Golden Knights by 121.5%
Golden Knights by 210.9%
Golden Knights by 3+18.5%

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 +2.4 goals to the Wild: the final margin was Wild by 3, without the luck Wild by 0.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Wild4452.35+2.65
Golden Knights3022.59−0.59

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 17:47 Boarding on the Golden Knights (Tomas Hertl): 5 minutes on the power play +9% MIN
P1 10:21 High sticking on the Wild (Nico Sturm): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P1 3:20 Hooking on the Wild (Jake Middleton): 2 minutes on the power play +3% VGK
P2 19:34 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Golden Knights (VGK): 2 minutes on the power play +2% MIN

When it happened

Golden Knights’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Wild were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:34 Marcus Johansson scored on a snap shot from 33 feetShooting · 7% chance +15% MIN –
2 P1 17:47 Boarding on the Golden Knights (Tomas Hertl): 5 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +9% MIN –
3 P1 10:21 High sticking on the Wild (Nico Sturm): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% VGK –
4 P1 9:50 Ivan Barbashev hit the left post with a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 26% chance +4% MIN –
5 P1 5:54 Matt Boldy scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 12% chance +13% MIN –
6 P1 3:20 Hooking on the Wild (Jake Middleton): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% VGK –
7 P2 19:34 Jared Spurgeon scored on a snap shot from 31 feetShooting · 5% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Golden Knights (VGK): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +11% MIN –
8 P2 15:28 Brock Faber scored on a wrist shot from 60 feetShooting · 1% chance +4% MIN –

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

Wild 63% · Golden Knights 37%

Final margin
Wild by 3
Luck in goals
2.4 for the Wild
Luck-adjusted margin
Wild by 0.6
Replay with same day's form
Wild 49% · Golden Knights 51% 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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