luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 31, 2025 · OT

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

Lightning at Ducks, Dec 31, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Lightning beat the Ducks 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Lightning win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Lightning.

The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Lightning won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Lightning.

Final (OT)

Tampa Bay Lightning 4
Anaheim Ducks 3

December 31, 2025 · Honda Center

Luck index +52 Lightning lucky · −52 Ducks

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. Lightning win 5, Ducks win 5.

  1. 1 TBL 4 ANA 0
  2. 2 TBL 6 ANA 3
  3. 3 TBL 2 ANA 0
  4. 4 TBL 3 ANA 2
  5. 5 TBL 2 ANA 1
  6. 6 TBL 4 ANA 5
  7. 7 TBL 3 ANA 4
  8. 8 TBL 1 ANA 3
  9. 9 TBL 0 ANA 3
  10. 10 TBL 2 ANA 6

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 3,999.9 replays ended

Lightning win 48% of them, Ducks 52%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+16.9%
Lightning by 29.6%
Lightning by 121.6%
Ducks by 123.7%
Ducks by 210.8%
Ducks by 3+17.4%

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.

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 +1.3 goals to the Lightning: the final margin was Lightning by 1, without the luck Ducks by 0.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning3732.37+0.63
Ducks4432.67+0.33

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 11:25 A Ducks goal came off the board on review (off side) +17% TBL
P2 12:59 Tripping on the Ducks (Olen Zellweger): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 3:33 Holding on the Lightning (Max Crozier): 2 minutes on the power play +5% ANA
P3 13:48 Tripping on the Ducks (Chris Kreider): 2 minutes on the power play +7% TBL
P3 10:27 Holding on the Lightning (Brandon Hagel): 2 minutes on the power play +5% ANA
P3 8:13 Slashing on the Lightning (Yanni Gourde): 2 minutes on the power play +6% ANA
P3 4:58 Interference on the Ducks (Pavel Mintyukov): 2 minutes on the power play +9% TBL

When it happened

Ducks’ 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 Ducks were ahead in it, below while the Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:25 A Ducks goal came off the board on review (off side)Overturned goals +17% TBL –
2 P1 6:30 J.J. Moser scored on a snap shot from 26 feetShooting · 8% chance +16% TBL –
3 P2 4:43 Jansen Harkins scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 5% chance +22% ANA –
4 P2 0:49 Brayden Point scored on a tip from 5 feetShooting · 14% chance +22% TBL –
5 P3 16:03 Beckett Sennecke scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 10% chance +25% ANA –
6 P3 12:00 Nikita Kucherov scored on a slap shot from 38 feetShooting · 7% chance +29% TBL –
7 P3 6:58 Mason McTavish scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 14% chance +31% ANA –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Lightning won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% TBL –

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

Lightning 45% · Ducks 55%

Final margin
Lightning by 1
Luck in goals
1.3 for the Lightning
Luck-adjusted margin
Ducks by 0.3
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 48% · Ducks 52% 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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