luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · February 25, 2026

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

Golden Knights at Kings, Feb 25, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Golden Knights beat the Kings 6–4, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Golden Knights win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 37 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

The game turned on a luck play (P3, 11:53 left): Colton Sissons scored on a backhand shot from 13 feet, worth 29 points of win probability to the Golden Knights. The biggest single swing (P3, 8:44 left): Brandon Saad scored on a snap shot from 30 feet.

Final

Vegas Golden Knights 6
Los Angeles Kings 4

February 25, 2026 · Crypto.com Arena

Luck index +46 Golden Knights lucky · −46 Kings

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. Golden Knights win 5, Kings win 5.

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

Golden Knights win 54% of them, Kings 46%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Golden Knights by 3+19.4%
Golden Knights by 211.0%
Golden Knights by 123.8%
Kings by 123.4%
Kings by 29.6%
Kings by 3+12.9%

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 Golden Knights: the final margin was Golden Knights by 2, without the luck Golden Knights by 1.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Golden Knights4752.52+2.48
Kings3142.11+1.89

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 6:09 Slashing on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% LAK
P2 8:13 Instigator on the Kings (Corey Perry): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
P3 4:50 Roughing on the Kings (Artemi Panarin): 2 minutes on the power play +6% VGK

When it happened

Kings’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 81%. 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 Kings were ahead in it, below while the Golden Knights were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 9:01 Pavel Dorofeyev scored on a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 8% chance +16% VGK –
2 P1 5:29 Quinton Byfield scored on a deflected shot from 23 feetShooting · 9% chance +16% LAK –
3 P2 5:16 Adrian Kempe scored on a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 17% chance +19% LAK –
4 P3 11:53 The game turned hereColton Sissons scored on a backhand shot from 13 feetShooting · 5% chance +29% VGK –
5 P3 8:44 Brandon Saad scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 8% chance +31% VGK –
6 P3 7:39 Reilly Smith scored on a backhand shot from 15 feetShooting · 4% chance +12% VGK –
7 P3 6:34 Quinton Byfield scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 10% chance +11% LAK –
8 P3 4:01 Pavel Dorofeyev scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 19% chance +8% VGK –

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

Golden Knights 80% · Kings 20%

Final margin
Golden Knights by 2
Luck in goals
0.5 for the Golden Knights
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 1.5
Replay with same day's form
Golden Knights 54% · Kings 46% 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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