luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 3, 2026

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

Predators at Flames, Jan 3, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Predators beat the Flames 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Predators win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 45 points of win probability to the Predators.

The biggest swing (P3, 0:29 left): Nicolas Hague scored on a slap shot from 61 feet, worth 47 points of win probability to the Predators.

Final

Nashville Predators 4
Calgary Flames 3

January 3, 2026 · Scotiabank Saddledome

Luck index +46 Predators lucky · −46 Flames

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 5, Flames win 5.

  1. 1 NSH 4 CGY 0
  2. 2 NSH 4 CGY 1
  3. 3 NSH 2 CGY 0
  4. 4 NSH 3 CGY 2
  5. 5 NSH 1 CGY 0
  6. 6 NSH 2 CGY 3
  7. 7 NSH 3 CGY 4
  8. 8 NSH 1 CGY 3
  9. 9 NSH 1 CGY 3
  10. 10 NSH 1 CGY 4

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 54% of them, Flames 46%. The line is what actually happened: Predators by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Predators by 3+18.9%
Predators by 210.9%
Predators by 123.8%
Flames by 123.5%
Flames by 210.5%
Flames by 3+12.3%

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.

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 +0.6 goals to the Predators: the final margin was Predators by 1, without the luck Predators by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Predators5142.33+1.67
Flames3732.10+0.90

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 4:40 Slashing on the Flames (Kevin Bahl): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P2 13:03 Holding on the Predators (Fedor Svechkov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P3 17:55 High sticking on the Predators (Erik Haula): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CGY

When it happened

Flames’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 70%. 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 Flames were ahead in it, below while the Predators were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:04 Yan Kuznetsov scored on a slap shot from 59 feetShooting · 2% chance +15% CGY –
2 P1 8:41 Erik Haula scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 15% chance +14% NSH –
3 P1 7:08 Erik Haula scored on a wrist shot from 27 feetShooting · 6% chance +17% NSH –
4 P1 6:19 Rasmus Andersson scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 10% chance +16% CGY –
5 P2 15:52 Michael Bunting scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 4% chance +19% NSH –
6 P3 7:11 Blake Coleman scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 8% chance +33% CGY –
7 P3 3:25 Nazem Kadri’s wrist shot from 15 feet was savedShooting · 12% chanceYegor Sharangovich’s deflected shot from 12 feet was savedShooting · 10% chance +9% NSH –
8 P3 0:29 Nicolas Hague scored on a slap shot from 61 feetShooting · 2% chance +47% 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% · Flames 46%

Final margin
Predators by 1
Luck in goals
0.6 for the Predators
Luck-adjusted margin
Predators by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Predators 54% · Flames 46% 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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