luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 31, 2025

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

Bruins at Oilers, Dec 31, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Bruins beat the Oilers 6–2, but the replays lean toward the Oilers: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 28 points of win probability to the Bruins.

The biggest swing (P2, 12:55 left): Hampus Lindholm scored on a wrist shot from 48 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Bruins.

Final

Boston Bruins 6
Edmonton Oilers 2

December 31, 2025 · Rogers Place

Luck index +69 Bruins very lucky · −69 Oilers

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. Bruins win 3, Oilers win 7.

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

Bruins win 31% of them, Oilers 69%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bruins by 3+8.6%
Bruins by 26.6%
Bruins by 115.6%
Oilers by 116.6%
Oilers by 211.1%
Oilers by 3+41.5%

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 +4.4 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Bruins by 4, without the luck Oilers by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Bruins4162.38+3.62
Oilers4624.30−2.30

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 15:38 Slashing on the Bruins (Elias Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +4% EDM
P1 14:35 Holding on the Oilers (Zach Hyman): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 13:29 Delaying game illegal play by goalie on the Oilers (Connor Ingram): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 5:21 Holding on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power play +4% EDM
P2 19:00 High sticking on the Bruins (Fraser Minten): 2 minutes on the power play +4% EDM
P2 14:56 Slashing on the Oilers (Evan Bouchard): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P2 6:51 Slashing on the Bruins (Morgan Geekie): 2 minutes on the power play +3% EDM
P3 14:45 Tripping on the Bruins (David Pastrnak): 2 minutes on the power play 0% EDM

When it happened

Oilers’ 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 Oilers were ahead in it, below while the Bruins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 12:32 David Pastrnak scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 9% chance +15% BOS –
2 P1 4:15 Connor McDavid’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 23% chanceConnor McDavid’s wrist shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 9% chance +6% BOS –
3 P1 1:47 Casey Mittelstadt scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% BOS –
4 P1 0:41 Zach Hyman scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% EDM –
5 P2 19:00 High sticking on the Bruins (Fraser Minten): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% EDM –
6 P2 14:56 Slashing on the Oilers (Evan Bouchard): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% BOS –
7 P2 12:55 Hampus Lindholm scored on a wrist shot from 48 feetShooting · 1% chance +16% BOS –
8 P2 1:41 David Pastrnak’s wrist shot from 20 feet was savedShooting · 17% chanceJonathan Aspirot scored on a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 26% chance +4% BOS –

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

Bruins 36% · Oilers 64%

Final margin
Bruins by 4
Luck in goals
4.4 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Oilers by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Bruins 31% · Oilers 69% 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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