2025-26 regular season · December 31, 2025
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Flyers at Flames, Dec 31, 2025: who deserved to win?
The Flames beat the Flyers 5–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Flames win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 23 points of win probability to the Flames.
The biggest swing (P1, 6:30 left): Mikael Backlund scored on a slap shot from 46 feet, worth 17 points of win probability to the Flames.
Final
| 1 | |
| 5 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +45 Flames lucky · −45 Flyers
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. Flyers win 4, Flames win 6.
- 1 PHI 4 CGY 1
- 2 PHI 4 CGY 2
- 3 PHI 3 CGY 2
- 4 PHI 4 CGY 3
- 5 PHI 2 CGY 3
- 6 PHI 2 CGY 3
- 7 PHI 1 CGY 3
- 8 PHI 1 CGY 4
- 9 PHI 1 CGY 4
- 10 PHI 4 CGY 8
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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 4,000.1 replays ended
Flyers win 45% of them, Flames 55%. The line is what actually happened: Flames by 4.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Flyers by 3+ | 15.8% |
| Flyers by 2 | 8.8% |
| Flyers by 1 | 19.9% |
| Flames by 1 | 20.8% |
| Flames by 2 | 11.2% |
| Flames by 3+ | 23.4% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42 | 1 | 2.61 | −1.61 | |
| 45 | 5 | 2.88 | +2.12 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P2 15:48 | Tripping on the Flames (Yan Kuznetsov): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% PHI |
| P2 9:39 | Tripping on the Flyers (Cam York): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CGY |
| P2 9:35 | High sticking on the Flyers (Christian Dvorak): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CGY |
| P2 3:47 | Delaying game puck over glass on the Flyers (Jamie Drysdale): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% CGY |
| P3 2:36 | Interference on the Flames (MacKenzie Weegar): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% PHI |
When it happened
Flames’ chance of winning
Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 6:30 | Mikael Backlund scored on a slap shot from 46 feetShooting · 4% chance | +17% CGY | – |
| 2 | P2 16:52 | Jonathan Huberdeau scored on a slap shot from 54 feetShooting · 3% chance | +14% CGY | – |
| 3 | P2 12:57 | Owen Tippett’s snap shot from 16 feet was savedShooting · 20% chance | +3% CGY | – |
| 4 | P2 11:11 | Travis Konecny scored on a shot from 42 feetShooting · 4% chance | +14% PHI | – |
| 5 | P2 9:39 | Tripping on the Flyers (Cam York): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% CGY | – |
| 6 | P2 9:35 | High sticking on the Flyers (Christian Dvorak): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% CGY | – |
| 7 | P2 7:57 | Rasmus Andersson scored on a slap shot from 47 feetShooting · 5% chance | +14% CGY | – |
| 8 | P2 2:08 | Yegor Sharangovich scored on a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 21% chance | +5% CGY | – |
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
Flyers 26% · Flames 74%
- Final margin
- Flames by 4
- Luck in goals
- 2.8 for the Flames
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Flames by 1.2
- Replay with same day's form
- Flyers 45% · Flames 55% unchanged: why
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.
More from week 13, 2025-26
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