luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 10, 2026 · OT

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

Islanders at Wild, Jan 10, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Wild 4–3, but the replays lean toward the Wild: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Islanders.

The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Islanders won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Islanders.

Final (OT)

New York Islanders 4
Minnesota Wild 3

January 10, 2026 · Grand Casino Arena

Luck index +70 Islanders very lucky · −70 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. Islanders win 3, Wild win 7.

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

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

Islanders win 30% of them, Wild 70%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Islanders by 3+7.1%
Islanders by 25.8%
Islanders by 116.9%
Wild by 116.6%
Wild by 211.7%
Wild by 3+41.9%

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 +2.3 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 1, without the luck Wild by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Islanders4332.31+0.69
Wild5433.98−0.98

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 10:37 Hooking on the Islanders (Maxim Tsyplakov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P1 10:02 High sticking on the Wild (Ryan Hartman): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 6:32 Boarding on the Islanders (Calum Ritchie): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P1 5:01 Slashing on the Islanders (Scott Mayfield): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 15:04 Tripping on the Wild (Jake Middleton): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYI
P2 6:35 Hooking on the Wild (Danila Yurov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 1:42 Slashing on the Islanders (Tony DeAngelo): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MIN

When it happened

Wild’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 76%. 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 Wild were ahead in it, below while the Islanders were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 17:09 Ben Jones scored on a tip from 9 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% MIN –
2 P1 15:42 Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored on a shot from 5 feetShooting · 29% chance +11% NYI –
3 P1 4:35 Matt Boldy scored on a slap shot from 29 feetShooting · 12% chance +15% MIN –
4 P2 18:31 Simon Holmstrom scored on a snap shot from 37 feetShooting · 8% chance +17% NYI –
5 P2 11:34 Kirill Kaprizov scored on a snap shot from 14 feetShooting · 10% chance +19% MIN –
6 P2 0:26 Casey Cizikas scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 17% chance +20% NYI –
7 P3 8:21 Danila Yurov’s snap shot from 10 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +6% NYI –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Islanders won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% NYI –

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

Islanders 25% · Wild 75%

Final margin
Islanders by 1
Luck in goals
2.3 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Wild by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Islanders 30% · Wild 70% 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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