luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 5, 2026

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

Wild at Kings, Jan 5, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Kings beat the Wild 4–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Kings win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 22 points of win probability to the Kings.

The biggest swing (P2, 4:26 left): Warren Foegele scored on a slap shot from 58 feet, worth 22 points of win probability to the Kings.

Final

Minnesota Wild 2
Los Angeles Kings 4

January 5, 2026 · Crypto.com Arena

Luck index +48 Kings lucky · −48 Wild

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. Wild win 5, Kings win 5.

  1. 1 MIN 4 LAK 0
  2. 2 MIN 5 LAK 2
  3. 3 MIN 4 LAK 2
  4. 4 MIN 1 LAK 0
  5. 5 MIN 5 LAK 4
  6. 6 MIN 0 LAK 1
  7. 7 MIN 2 LAK 3
  8. 8 MIN 2 LAK 4
  9. 9 MIN 1 LAK 4
  10. 10 MIN 1 LAK 5

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

Wild win 48% of them, Kings 52%. The line is what actually happened: Kings by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Wild by 3+17.7%
Wild by 210.3%
Wild by 119.6%
Kings by 119.7%
Kings by 210.4%
Kings by 3+22.4%

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 +0.4 goals to the Kings: the final margin was Kings by 2, without the luck Kings by 1.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Wild5223.28−1.28
Kings4333.26−0.26

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 7:44 Interference on the Kings (Drew Doughty): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 18:35 Interference on the Kings (Quinton Byfield): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 12:25 Tripping on the Kings (Andrei Kuzmenko): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MIN
P2 0:00 Roughing on the Wild (Danila Yurov): 2 minutes on the power play +2% LAK
P3 8:55 Hooking on the Kings (Adrian Kempe): 2 minutes on the power play +2% MIN
P3 6:57 High sticking double minor on the Kings (Mikey Anderson): 4 minutes on the power play +3% MIN

When it happened

Kings’ chance of winning

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 Kings were ahead in it, below while the Wild were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 7:44 Interference on the Kings (Drew Doughty): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% MIN –
2 P2 18:35 Interference on the Kings (Quinton Byfield): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% MIN –
3 P2 12:25 Tripping on the Kings (Andrei Kuzmenko): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% MIN –
4 P2 4:26 Warren Foegele scored on a slap shot from 58 feetShooting · 2% chance +22% LAK –
5 P2 2:08 Kevin Fiala scored on a tip from 5 feetShooting · 15% chance +13% LAK –
6 P3 14:05 Jared Spurgeon scored on a slap shot from 57 feetShooting · 2% chance +14% MIN –
7 P3 10:40 Andrei Kuzmenko scored on a wrist shot from 3 feetShooting · 34% chance +9% LAK –
8 P3 4:39 Ryan Hartman scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 18% chance +7% MIN –

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

Wild 18% · Kings 82%

Final margin
Kings by 2
Luck in goals
0.4 for the Kings
Luck-adjusted margin
Kings by 1.6
Replay with same day's form
Wild 48% · Kings 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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