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.

Predators at Islanders, Jan 31, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Predators beat the Islanders 4–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The game turned on a luck play (P2, 5:49 left): Filip Forsberg scored on a wrist shot from 10 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Predators. The biggest single swing (P3, 1:14 left): Roman Josi scored on a wrist shot from 47 feet.

Final

Nashville Predators 4
New York Islanders 3

January 31, 2026 · UBS Arena

Luck index +32 Predators lucky · −32 Islanders

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. Predators win 7, Islanders win 3.

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

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

Predators win 68% of them, Islanders 32%. The line is what actually happened: Predators by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Predators by 3+43.0%
Predators by 210.3%
Predators by 115.1%
Islanders by 115.8%
Islanders by 25.9%
Islanders by 3+9.8%

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 +0.5 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Predators by 1, without the luck Predators by 1.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Predators5644.79−0.79
Islanders3933.07−0.07

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 10:07 Tripping on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NSH
P1 3:49 Hooking on the Predators (Jonathan Marchessault): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P3 18:50 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Islanders (NYI): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NSH
P3 7:41 Tripping on the Predators (Adam Wilsby): 2 minutes on the power play +8% NYI

When it happened

Islanders’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 83%. 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 Predators were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:31 Mathew Barzal scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% NYI –
2 P1 14:03 Matthew Schaefer scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 11% chance +12% NYI –
3 P1 10:01 Filip Forsberg scored on a wrist shot from 38 feetShooting · 4% chance +13% NSH –
4 P1 7:07 Matthew Wood scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 12% chance +15% NSH –
5 P2 12:39 Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 9% chance +18% NYI –
6 P2 5:49 The game turned hereFilip Forsberg scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 8% chance +21% NSH –
7 P3 1:14 Roman Josi scored on a wrist shot from 47 feetShooting · 2% chance +43% NSH –
8 P3 0:11 Emil Heineman’s snap shot from 17 feet was savedShooting · 21% chance +10% NSH –

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

Predators 74% · Islanders 26%

Final margin
Predators by 1
Luck in goals
0.5 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Predators by 1.5
Replay with same day's form
Predators 68% · Islanders 32% 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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