luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 9, 2026

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

Blues at Mammoth, Jan 9, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Mammoth beat the Blues 4–2, 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 23 points of win probability to the Mammoth.

The biggest swing (P1, 4:50 left): Nick Schmaltz scored on a snap shot from 10 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Mammoth.

Final

St. Louis Blues 2
Utah Mammoth 4

January 9, 2026 · Delta Center

Luck index +52 Mammoth lucky · −52 Blues

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. Blues win 5, Mammoth win 5.

  1. 1 STL 6 UTA 1
  2. 2 STL 3 UTA 0
  3. 3 STL 7 UTA 5
  4. 4 STL 4 UTA 3
  5. 5 STL 3 UTA 2
  6. 6 STL 2 UTA 3
  7. 7 STL 2 UTA 3
  8. 8 STL 1 UTA 3
  9. 9 STL 1 UTA 4
  10. 10 STL 1 UTA 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

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

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blues by 3+22.6%
Blues by 29.7%
Blues by 119.7%
Mammoth by 120.8%
Mammoth by 29.5%
Mammoth by 3+17.8%

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 Mammoth: the final margin was Mammoth by 2, without the luck Mammoth by 1.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blues4923.86−1.86
Mammoth4042.98+1.02

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 17:30 Slashing on the Mammoth (Alexander Kerfoot): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P2 7:20 Cross checking on the Blues (Robert Thomas): 2 minutes on the power play +3% UTA
P2 2:35 Holding on the Mammoth (Nick DeSimone): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P2 1:49 Holding on the Blues (Philip Broberg): 2 minutes on the power play +5% UTA
P3 18:07 Interference on the Mammoth (Dylan Guenther): 2 minutes on the power play +5% STL
P3 13:54 High sticking on the Blues (Jimmy Snuggerud): 2 minutes on the power play +5% UTA
P3 4:23 Interference on the Mammoth (Dylan Guenther): 2 minutes on the power play +1% STL

When it happened

Mammoth’ 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 Mammoth were ahead in it, below while the Blues were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 4:50 Nick Schmaltz scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 20% chance +14% UTA –
2 P1 0:38 Jordan Kyrou’s snap shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 29% chanceJordan Kyrou’s wraparound from 3 feet was savedShooting · 14% chance +8% UTA –
3 P2 12:15 Lawson Crouse scored on a snap shot from 38 feetShooting · 5% chance +14% UTA –
4 P2 12:05 Oskar Sundqvist scored on a snap shot from 37 feetShooting · 4% chance +14% STL –
5 P2 8:17 Sean Durzi scored on a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 10% chance +13% UTA –
6 P2 3:33 Pavel Buchnevich scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 15% chance +13% STL –
7 P3 13:54 High sticking on the Blues (Jimmy Snuggerud): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% UTA –
8 P3 13:03 Nick Schmaltz scored on a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 23% chance +11% 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

Blues 22% · Mammoth 78%

Final margin
Mammoth by 2
Luck in goals
0.4 for the Mammoth
Luck-adjusted margin
Mammoth by 1.6
Replay with same day's form
Blues 52% · Mammoth 48% 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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