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.

Predators at Golden Knights, Dec 31, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Predators beat the Golden Knights 4–2, but the replays lean toward the Golden Knights: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 25 points of win probability to the Predators.

The biggest swing (P1, 3:39 left): Reid Schaefer scored on a snap shot from 41 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Predators.

Final

Nashville Predators 4
Vegas Golden Knights 2

December 31, 2025 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +61 Predators very lucky · −61 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. Predators win 4, Golden Knights win 6.

  1. 1 NSH 4 VGK 1
  2. 2 NSH 4 VGK 2
  3. 3 NSH 1 VGK 0
  4. 4 NSH 5 VGK 4
  5. 5 NSH 3 VGK 4
  6. 6 NSH 1 VGK 2
  7. 7 NSH 1 VGK 3
  8. 8 NSH 1 VGK 4
  9. 9 NSH 1 VGK 4
  10. 10 NSH 1 VGK 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 4,000.1 replays ended

Predators win 39% of them, Golden Knights 61%. The line is what actually happened: Predators by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Predators by 3+12.5%
Predators by 27.4%
Predators by 119.3%
Golden Knights by 120.4%
Golden Knights by 212.3%
Golden Knights by 3+28.0%

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 +2.0 goals to the Predators: the final margin was Predators by 2, without the luck even. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Predators3442.39+1.61
Golden Knights4823.59−1.59

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 14:36 High sticking on the Predators (Erik Haula): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P1 5:44 Hooking on the Golden Knights (Brett Howden): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P2 18:21 Cross checking on the Predators (Nicolas Hague): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 16:25 Slashing on the Golden Knights (Alexander Holtz): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P2 11:42 Cross checking on the Golden Knights (Keegan Kolesar): 4 minutes on the power play +9% NSH
P3 6:27 Interference on the Predators (Michael McCarron): 2 minutes on the power play +2% VGK

When it happened

Golden Knights’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 84%. 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 Predators were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:25 Mark Stone scored on a tip from 4 feetShooting · 19% chance +13% VGK –
2 P1 10:54 Ben Hutton scored on a tip from 14 feetShooting · 8% chance +12% VGK –
3 P1 8:40 Nick Perbix scored on a wrist shot from 53 feetShooting · 2% chance +13% NSH –
4 P1 4:23 Steven Stamkos scored on a wrist shot from 27 feetShooting · 7% chance +16% NSH –
5 P1 3:39 Reid Schaefer scored on a snap shot from 41 feetShooting · 3% chance +18% NSH –
6 P2 11:42 Cross checking on the Golden Knights (Keegan Kolesar): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +9% NSH –
7 P2 8:08 Michael Bunting scored on a tip from 8 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% NSH –
8 P3 14:06 Brandon Saad’s wrist shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 23% chanceBrandon Saad’s wrist shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 24% chance +7% NSH –

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

Predators 54% · Golden Knights 46%

Final margin
Predators by 2
Luck in goals
2.0 for the Predators
Luck-adjusted margin
even
Replay with same day's form
Predators 39% · Golden Knights 61% 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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