luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 29, 2026

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

Flames at Wild, Jan 29, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Wild beat the Flames 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Wild win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 21 points of win probability to the Wild.

The biggest swing (P1, 17:17 left): Danila Yurov scored on a snap shot from 18 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Wild.

Final

Calgary Flames 1
Minnesota Wild 4

January 29, 2026 · Grand Casino Arena

Luck index +47 Wild lucky · −47 Flames

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. Flames win 5, Wild win 5.

  1. 1 CGY 6 MIN 3
  2. 2 CGY 5 MIN 2
  3. 3 CGY 5 MIN 3
  4. 4 CGY 2 MIN 1
  5. 5 CGY 4 MIN 3
  6. 6 CGY 2 MIN 3
  7. 7 CGY 3 MIN 4
  8. 8 CGY 2 MIN 4
  9. 9 CGY 1 MIN 4
  10. 10 CGY 0 MIN 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 3,999.9 replays ended

Flames win 47% of them, Wild 53%. The line is what actually happened: Wild by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flames by 3+15.7%
Flames by 210.0%
Flames by 121.1%
Wild by 123.4%
Wild by 210.6%
Wild by 3+19.2%

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 +2.2 goals to the Wild: the final margin was Wild by 3, without the luck Wild by 0.8. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flames4712.58−1.58
Wild3832.39+0.61

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 13:55 Slashing on the Wild (Brock Faber): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CGY
P1 1:40 High sticking on the Wild (Ryan Hartman): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CGY
P3 13:55 High sticking on the Wild (Quinn Hughes): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CGY
P3 5:07 Elbowing on the Flames (Martin Pospisil): 2 minutes on the power play +6% MIN
P3 3:53 Holding on the Flames (MacKenzie Weegar): 2 minutes on the power play +6% MIN

When it happened

Wild’ 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 Wild were ahead in it, below while the Flames were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 17:17 Danila Yurov scored on a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 11% chance +14% MIN –
2 P1 9:23 Vinnie Hinostroza scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 10% chance +12% MIN –
3 P3 14:11 Morgan Frost scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 9% chance +13% CGY –
4 P3 13:55 High sticking on the Wild (Quinn Hughes): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% CGY –
5 P3 11:58 Connor Zary’s wrist shot from 13 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +5% MIN –
6 P3 5:07 Elbowing on the Flames (Martin Pospisil): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% MIN –
7 P3 3:53 Holding on the Flames (MacKenzie Weegar): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% MIN –
8 P3 2:43 Matt Boldy scored on a tip from 14 feetShooting · 10% chance +6% MIN –

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

Flames 29% · Wild 71%

Final margin
Wild by 3
Luck in goals
2.2 for the Wild
Luck-adjusted margin
Wild by 0.8
Replay with same day's form
Flames 47% · Wild 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.

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