luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 28, 2026

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

Avalanche at Senators, Jan 28, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Senators beat the Avalanche 5–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P2, 5:55 left): Parker Kelly scored on a snap shot from 32 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

Final

Colorado Avalanche 2
Ottawa Senators 5

January 28, 2026 · Canadian Tire Centre

Luck index +37 Senators lucky · −37 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 4, Senators win 6.

  1. 1 COL 3 OTT 0
  2. 2 COL 3 OTT 1
  3. 3 COL 3 OTT 2
  4. 4 COL 2 OTT 1
  5. 5 COL 0 OTT 1
  6. 6 COL 1 OTT 2
  7. 7 COL 2 OTT 4
  8. 8 COL 0 OTT 3
  9. 9 COL 3 OTT 6
  10. 10 COL 0 OTT 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 replays ended

Avalanche win 37% of them, Senators 63%. The line is what actually happened: Senators by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+8.4%
Avalanche by 28.2%
Avalanche by 120.8%
Senators by 125.1%
Senators by 213.3%
Senators by 3+24.2%

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 +0.9 goals to the Senators: the final margin was Senators by 3, without the luck Senators by 2.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche3722.08−0.08
Senators3032.27+0.73

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 18:40 Delaying game puck over glass on the Avalanche (Sam Malinski): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P1 2:47 Hooking on the Avalanche (Taylor Makar): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P2 9:54 Hooking on the Avalanche (Artturi Lehkonen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT

When it happened

Senators’ 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 Senators were ahead in it, below while the Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 2:47 Hooking on the Avalanche (Taylor Makar): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% OTT –
2 P1 1:39 Claude Giroux’s wrist shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 25% chance +4% COL –
3 P2 16:39 Nick Cousins scored on a backhand shot from 14 feetShooting · 5% chance +18% OTT –
4 P2 6:47 Victor Olofsson’s wrist shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance +5% OTT –
5 P2 5:55 Parker Kelly scored on a snap shot from 32 feetShooting · 7% chance +21% COL –
6 P2 5:38 Ridly Greig scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 12% chance +20% OTT –
7 P3 17:54 Claude Giroux scored on a wrist shot from 25 feetShooting · 7% chance +14% OTT –
8 P3 16:30 Valeri Nichushkin scored on a backhand shot from 10 feetShooting · 12% chance +13% COL –

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 10% · Senators 90%

Final margin
Senators by 3
Luck in goals
0.9 for the Senators
Luck-adjusted margin
Senators by 2.1
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 37% · Senators 63% 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 17 2025-26 games · Avalanche · Senators

More from week 17, 2025-26

Every game of week 17, 2025-26