luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 8, 2026

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

Blue Jackets at Golden Knights, Jan 8, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Golden Knights beat the Blue Jackets 5–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Golden Knights win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 35 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

The biggest swing (P2, 6:53 left): Jack Eichel scored on a wrist shot from 33 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

Final

Columbus Blue Jackets 3
Vegas Golden Knights 5

January 8, 2026 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +47 Golden Knights lucky · −47 Blue Jackets

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. Blue Jackets win 5, Golden Knights win 5.

  1. 1 CBJ 4 VGK 0
  2. 2 CBJ 3 VGK 0
  3. 3 CBJ 2 VGK 0
  4. 4 CBJ 7 VGK 6
  5. 5 CBJ 2 VGK 1
  6. 6 CBJ 2 VGK 3
  7. 7 CBJ 2 VGK 3
  8. 8 CBJ 3 VGK 5
  9. 9 CBJ 0 VGK 3
  10. 10 CBJ 1 VGK 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

Blue Jackets win 47% of them, Golden Knights 53%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blue Jackets by 3+16.7%
Blue Jackets by 29.2%
Blue Jackets by 121.0%
Golden Knights by 120.8%
Golden Knights by 29.7%
Golden Knights by 3+22.6%

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 +1.5 goals to the Golden Knights: the final margin was Golden Knights by 2, without the luck Golden Knights by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blue Jackets4433.07−0.07
Golden Knights3853.08+1.92

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 1:56 High sticking on the Golden Knights (Keegan Kolesar): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P2 1:32 Hooking on the Blue Jackets (Mathieu Olivier): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
P3 17:21 Delaying game puck over glass on the Blue Jackets (Brendan Gaunce): 2 minutes on the power play +2% VGK

When it happened

Golden Knights’ chance of winning

As low as 21% 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 Golden Knights were ahead in it, below while the Blue Jackets were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:36 Boone Jenner scored on a tip from 10 feetShooting · 6% chance +16% CBJ –
2 P1 9:19 Kent Johnson scored on a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 16% chance +13% CBJ –
3 P1 7:40 Reilly Smith scored on a tip from 8 feetShooting · 7% chance +14% VGK –
4 P2 14:41 Reilly Smith scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 7% chance +19% VGK –
5 P2 6:53 Jack Eichel scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 5% chance +21% VGK –
6 P2 1:16 Mark Stone scored on a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 24% chance +11% VGK –
7 P3 5:32 Kirill Marchenko scored on a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 15% chance +9% CBJ –
8 P3 3:46 Brett Howden scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 11% chance +7% VGK –

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

Blue Jackets 33% · Golden Knights 67%

Final margin
Golden Knights by 2
Luck in goals
1.5 for the Golden Knights
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Blue Jackets 47% · Golden Knights 53% 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.

All week 14 2025-26 games · Blue Jackets · Golden Knights

More from week 14, 2025-26

Every game of week 14, 2025-26