luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 6, 2026

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

Avalanche at Lightning, Jan 6, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Lightning beat the Avalanche 4–2, 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: goaltending alone was worth 29 points of win probability to the Lightning.

The biggest swing (P3, 11:29 left): Brandon Hagel scored on a snap shot from 20 feet, worth 27 points of win probability to the Lightning.

Final

Colorado Avalanche 2
Tampa Bay Lightning 4

January 6, 2026 · Benchmark International Arena

Luck index +46 Lightning lucky · −46 Avalanche

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. Avalanche win 5, Lightning win 5.

  1. 1 COL 4 TBL 1
  2. 2 COL 4 TBL 1
  3. 3 COL 2 TBL 0
  4. 4 COL 4 TBL 3
  5. 5 COL 5 TBL 4
  6. 6 COL 1 TBL 2
  7. 7 COL 2 TBL 3
  8. 8 COL 2 TBL 4
  9. 9 COL 0 TBL 3
  10. 10 COL 1 TBL 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Avalanche win 46% of them, Lightning 54%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+14.0%
Avalanche by 29.4%
Avalanche by 122.5%
Lightning by 123.0%
Lightning by 211.6%
Lightning by 3+19.4%

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 +0.8 goals to the Lightning: the final margin was Lightning by 2, without the luck Lightning by 1.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche4623.14−1.14
Lightning4532.49+0.51

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 16:02 Holding on the Lightning (Darren Raddysh): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL
P1 1:46 Tripping on the Avalanche (Brent Burns): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 12:32 Slashing on the Avalanche (Zakhar Bardakov): 2 minutes on the power play +5% TBL
P3 18:41 Holding on the Lightning (Charle-Edouard D'Astous): 2 minutes on the power play +6% COL
P3 0:00 Roughing on the Lightning (Nick Paul): 2 minutes on the power play 0% COL

When it happened

Lightning’ chance of winning

As low as 28% and as high as 100%. 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 Lightning were ahead in it, below while the Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 0:12 Jake Guentzel scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 11% chance +16% TBL –
2 P2 16:38 Parker Kelly scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 17% chance +16% COL –
3 P2 10:29 Brock Nelson scored on a snap shot from 35 feetShooting · 6% chance +20% COL –
4 P2 2:38 Zemgus Girgensons scored on a tip from 9 feetShooting · 8% chance +22% TBL –
5 P3 11:29 Brandon Hagel scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 11% chance +27% TBL –
6 P3 3:18 Victor Olofsson’s wrist shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 21% chance +8% TBL –
7 P3 2:09 Brock Nelson’s wrist shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 24% chance +10% TBL –
8 P3 1:37 Brock Nelson’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance +9% 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

Avalanche 26% · Lightning 74%

Final margin
Lightning by 2
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Lightning
Luck-adjusted margin
Lightning by 1.2
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 46% · Lightning 54% 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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