luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 31, 2026

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

Kraken at Golden Knights, Jan 31, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Kraken beat the Golden Knights 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Kraken win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 22 points of win probability to the Kraken.

The biggest swing (P3, 16:42 left): Kaapo Kakko scored on a backhand shot from 10 feet, worth 24 points of win probability to the Kraken.

Final

Seattle Kraken 3
Vegas Golden Knights 2

January 31, 2026 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +54 Kraken lucky · −54 Golden Knights

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. Kraken win 5, Golden Knights win 5.

  1. 1 SEA 5 VGK 2
  2. 2 SEA 5 VGK 3
  3. 3 SEA 3 VGK 2
  4. 4 SEA 3 VGK 2
  5. 5 SEA 2 VGK 1
  6. 6 SEA 3 VGK 4
  7. 7 SEA 0 VGK 1
  8. 8 SEA 4 VGK 6
  9. 9 SEA 1 VGK 4
  10. 10 SEA 0 VGK 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

Kraken win 46% of them, Golden Knights 54%. The line is what actually happened: Kraken by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Kraken by 3+13.2%
Kraken by 29.4%
Kraken by 123.5%
Golden Knights by 123.9%
Golden Knights by 210.7%
Golden Knights 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 +1.3 goals to the Kraken: the final margin was Kraken by 1, without the luck Golden Knights by 0.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Kraken3532.05+0.95
Golden Knights4322.82−0.82

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 8:09 Too many men on the ice on the Golden Knights (VGK): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SEA
P2 7:08 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Pavel Dorofeyev): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SEA
P2 3:23 Tripping on the Kraken (Ryker Evans): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
P2 0:33 Hooking on the Kraken (Vince Dunn): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK

When it happened

Golden Knights’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Golden Knights were ahead in it, below while the Kraken were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:10 Eeli Tolvanen scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 16% chance +14% SEA –
2 P1 6:56 Jared McCann scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% SEA –
3 P2 11:08 Ivan Barbashev scored on a wrist shot from 4 feetShooting · 32% chance +11% VGK –
4 P2 4:49 Jonas Rondbjerg missed the net with a slap shot from 5 feetShooting · 28% chance +7% SEA –
5 P2 0:12 Mitch Marner scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 11% chance +23% VGK –
6 P3 16:42 Kaapo Kakko scored on a backhand shot from 10 feetShooting · 11% chance +24% SEA –
7 P3 0:58 Jack Eichel’s wrist shot from 23 feet was savedShooting · 14% chance +6% SEA –
8 P3 0:14 Tomas Hertl missed the net with a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 17% chance +8% SEA –

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

Kraken 36% · Golden Knights 64%

Final margin
Kraken by 1
Luck in goals
1.3 for the Kraken
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 0.3
Replay with same day's form
Kraken 46% · Golden Knights 54% 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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