luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · February 3, 2026 · OT

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

Penguins at Islanders, Feb 3, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Penguins 5–4, but the replays lean toward the Penguins: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 53 points of win probability to the Islanders.

The biggest swing (OT): the Islanders won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Islanders.

Final (OT)

Pittsburgh Penguins 4
New York Islanders 5

February 3, 2026 · UBS Arena

Luck index +74 Islanders very lucky · −74 Penguins

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. Penguins win 7, Islanders win 3.

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

Penguins win 74% of them, Islanders 26%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Penguins by 3+46.8%
Penguins by 211.3%
Penguins by 115.7%
Islanders by 116.6%
Islanders by 24.8%
Islanders by 3+4.7%

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 +2.5 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 1, without the luck Penguins by 1.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Penguins5043.86+0.14
Islanders3441.86+2.14

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 18:06 Hooking on the Islanders (Scott Mayfield): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P2 15:52 Delaying game puck over glass on the Penguins (Erik Karlsson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYI
P2 1:53 Holding on the Islanders (Carson Soucy): 2 minutes on the power play +5% PIT
P3 8:08 Tripping on the Penguins (Sidney Crosby): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NYI

When it happened

Islanders’ chance of winning

As low as 14% and as high as 100%. 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 Penguins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 1:19 Bo Horvat scored on a backhand shot from 3 feetShooting · 20% chance +15% NYI –
2 P1 0:04 Matthew Schaefer scored on a slap shot from 48 feetShooting · 5% chance +18% NYI –
3 P2 16:08 Egor Chinakhov scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 16% chance +16% PIT –
4 P2 5:51 Bryan Rust scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 3% chance +22% PIT –
5 P3 11:23 Mathew Barzal scored on a slap shot from 57 feetShooting · 2% chance +31% NYI –
6 P3 9:20 Justin Brazeau scored on a tip from 18 feetShooting · 6% chance +31% PIT –
7 P3 4:36 Ryan Pulock scored on a snap shot from 39 feetShooting · 6% chance +37% NYI –
8 OT The Islanders won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% 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

Penguins 80% · Islanders 20%

Final margin
Islanders by 1
Luck in goals
2.5 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Penguins by 1.5
Replay with same day's form
Penguins 74% · Islanders 26% 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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