luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · February 4, 2026

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

Red Wings at Mammoth, Feb 4, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Mammoth beat the Red Wings 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Mammoth win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 34 points of win probability to the Mammoth.

The biggest swing (P1, 19:03 left): Sean Durzi scored on a snap shot from 44 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Mammoth.

Final

Detroit Red Wings 1
Utah Mammoth 4

February 4, 2026 · Delta Center

Luck index +47 Mammoth lucky · −47 Red Wings

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. Red Wings win 5, Mammoth win 5.

  1. 1 DET 7 UTA 2
  2. 2 DET 4 UTA 1
  3. 3 DET 4 UTA 2
  4. 4 DET 3 UTA 2
  5. 5 DET 5 UTA 4
  6. 6 DET 2 UTA 3
  7. 7 DET 2 UTA 3
  8. 8 DET 0 UTA 2
  9. 9 DET 1 UTA 4
  10. 10 DET 2 UTA 6

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

Red Wings win 47% of them, Mammoth 53%. The line is what actually happened: Mammoth by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Red Wings by 3+20.2%
Red Wings by 29.2%
Red Wings by 118.0%
Mammoth by 121.1%
Mammoth by 210.0%
Mammoth by 3+21.5%

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 +1.9 goals to the Mammoth: the final margin was Mammoth by 3, without the luck Mammoth by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Red Wings5313.98−2.98
Mammoth3833.20−0.20

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 13:28 Delaying game puck over glass on the Red Wings (Ben Chiarot): 2 minutes on the power play +3% UTA
P1 12:10 Slashing on the Red Wings (Dylan Larkin): 2 minutes on the power play +3% UTA
P1 4:51 Hooking on the Mammoth (Barrett Hayton): 2 minutes on the power play +3% DET
P2 17:27 Tripping on the Red Wings (Travis Hamonic): 2 minutes on the power play +3% UTA
P2 5:09 Hooking on the Mammoth (Dylan Guenther): 2 minutes on the power play +3% DET
P2 0:58 Hooking on the Mammoth (Nate Schmidt): 2 minutes on the power play +2% DET
P3 5:39 Delaying game puck over glass on the Mammoth (Nick DeSimone): 2 minutes on the power play 0% DET

When it happened

Mammoth’ 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 Mammoth were ahead in it, below while the Red Wings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:03 Sean Durzi scored on a snap shot from 44 feetShooting · 2% chance +15% UTA –
2 P1 13:28 Delaying game puck over glass on the Red Wings (Ben Chiarot): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% UTA –
3 P1 12:10 Slashing on the Red Wings (Dylan Larkin): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% UTA –
4 P1 11:49 Nick Schmaltz scored on a snap shot from 16 feetShooting · 24% chance +10% UTA –
5 P1 4:46 Alex DeBrincat missed the net with a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 21% chance +3% UTA –
6 P2 15:00 Patrick Kane’s slap shot from 19 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +3% UTA –
7 P2 5:02 Lucas Raymond’s slap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 36% chance +5% UTA –
8 P3 15:20 Dylan Guenther scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 13% chance +4% UTA –

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

Red Wings 29% · Mammoth 71%

Final margin
Mammoth by 3
Luck in goals
1.9 for the Mammoth
Luck-adjusted margin
Mammoth by 1.1
Replay with same day's form
Red Wings 47% · Mammoth 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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