2025-26 regular season · January 1, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Mammoth at Islanders, Jan 1, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Mammoth beat the Islanders 7–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Mammoth win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 25 points of win probability to the Mammoth.
The biggest swing (P2, 9:40 left): Dylan Guenther scored on a snap shot from 30 feet, worth 20 points of win probability to the Mammoth.
Final
 Utah Mammoth | 7 |
|---|---|
 New York Islanders | 2 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +45 Mammoth lucky · −45 Islanders
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. Mammoth win 5, Islanders win 5.
- 1 UTA 5 NYI 1
- 2 UTA 6 NYI 3
- 3 UTA 3 NYI 1
- 4 UTA 4 NYI 3
- 5 UTA 3 NYI 2
- 6 UTA 3 NYI 4
- 7 UTA 2 NYI 3
- 8 UTA 2 NYI 4
- 9 UTA 3 NYI 6
- 10 UTA 0 NYI 4
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 3,999.9 replays ended
Mammoth win 55% of them, Islanders 45%. The line is what actually happened: Mammoth by 5.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Mammoth by 3+ | 23.6% |
| Mammoth by 2 | 10.2% |
| Mammoth by 1 | 20.8% |
| Islanders by 1 | 21.7% |
| Islanders by 2 | 9.5% |
| Islanders by 3+ | 14.3% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Mammoth | 39 | 7 | 2.60 | +4.40 |
 Islanders | 35 | 2 | 2.44 | −0.44 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| P1 10:43 | Interference on the Mammoth (Jack McBain): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% NYI |
| P1 6:10 | Cross checking on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% UTA |
| P2 14:26 | Tripping on the Mammoth (Clayton Keller): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% NYI |
| P2 7:21 | Tripping on the Islanders (Matthew Schaefer): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% UTA |
| P2 2:34 | High sticking double minor on the Mammoth (Alexander Kerfoot): 4 minutes on the power play | +6% NYI |
| P3 18:43 | Hooking on the Islanders (Anders Lee): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% UTA |
| P3 14:58 | Too many men on the ice on the Islanders (NYI): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% UTA |
| P3 9:19 | Interference on the Mammoth (Ian Cole): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% NYI |
| P3 2:37 | Tripping on the Islanders (Maxim Tsyplakov): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% UTA |
When it happened
Islanders’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 54%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 5:23 | JJ Peterka missed the net with a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 26% chance | +5% NYI | – |
| 2 | P2 19:24 | Dylan Guenther scored on a snap shot from 27 feetShooting · 10% chance | +17% UTA | – |
| 3 | P2 17:25 | Calum Ritchie scored on a snap shot from 27 feetShooting · 9% chance | +18% NYI | – |
| 4 | P2 14:26 | Tripping on the Mammoth (Clayton Keller): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% NYI | – |
| 5 | P2 9:40 | Dylan Guenther scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 9% chance | +20% UTA | – |
| 6 | P2 3:41 | Nick Schmaltz scored on a wrist shot from 28 feetShooting · 6% chance | +16% UTA | – |
| 7 | P2 2:34 | High sticking double minor on the Mammoth (Alexander Kerfoot): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +6% NYI | – |
| 8 | P3 17:08 | Mikhail Sergachev scored on a wrist shot from 48 feetShooting · 3% chance | +6% UTA | – |
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
Mammoth 84% · Islanders 16%
- Final margin
- Mammoth by 5
- Luck in goals
- 3.6 for the Mammoth
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Mammoth by 1.4
- Replay with same day's form
- Mammoth 55% · Islanders 45% 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.
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