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.

Rangers at Islanders, Jan 28, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Rangers 5–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The biggest swing (P2, 6:48 left): Mathew Barzal scored on a snap shot from 31 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Islanders.

Final

New York Rangers 2
New York Islanders 5

January 28, 2026 · UBS Arena

Luck index +29 Islanders lucky · −29 Rangers

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. Rangers win 3, Islanders win 7.

  1. 1 NYR 3 NYI 1
  2. 2 NYR 4 NYI 3
  3. 3 NYR 3 NYI 2
  4. 4 NYR 1 NYI 2
  5. 5 NYR 3 NYI 4
  6. 6 NYR 1 NYI 3
  7. 7 NYR 1 NYI 3
  8. 8 NYR 0 NYI 3
  9. 9 NYR 2 NYI 6
  10. 10 NYR 0 NYI 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 replays ended

Rangers win 29% of them, Islanders 71%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Rangers by 3+5.4%
Rangers by 25.3%
Rangers by 117.8%
Islanders by 119.8%
Islanders by 212.7%
Islanders by 3+39.0%

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 +1.0 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 3, without the luck Islanders by 2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Rangers2821.66+0.34
Islanders4853.33+1.67

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 8:27 Slashing on the Rangers (Alexis Lafrenière): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 8:18 Interference on the Islanders (Bo Horvat): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYR
P1 6:58 Slashing on the Rangers (Vincent Trocheck): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 2:27 High sticking on the Islanders (Jonathan Drouin): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYR
P2 10:19 Tripping on the Rangers (Sam Carrick): 6 minutes on the power play +12% NYI
P3 12:32 Tripping on the Islanders (Bo Horvat): 2 minutes on the power play +1% NYR

When it happened

Islanders’ 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 Islanders were ahead in it, below while the Rangers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 5:01 Ondrej Palat scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 25% chance +13% NYI –
2 P1 3:50 Simon Holmstrom scored on a tip from 7 feetShooting · 7% chance +13% NYI –
3 P1 1:56 Mika Zibanejad scored on a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 9% chance +13% NYR –
4 P2 10:19 Tripping on the Rangers (Sam Carrick): 6 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +12% NYI –
5 P2 6:48 Mathew Barzal scored on a snap shot from 31 feetShooting · 5% chance +14% NYI –
6 P2 6:01 Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 13% chance +6% NYI –
7 P2 4:18 Taylor Raddysh scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 7% chance +6% NYR –
8 P2 0:48 Emil Heineman scored on a snap shot from 16 feetShooting · 21% chance +5% 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

Rangers 10% · Islanders 90%

Final margin
Islanders by 3
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Islanders by 2.0
Replay with same day's form
Rangers 29% · Islanders 71% 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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