luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

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

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

Flyers at Rangers, Feb 26, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Flyers beat the Rangers 3–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Rangers had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 18 points of win probability to the Rangers.

The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Flyers won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Flyers.

Final (OT)

Philadelphia Flyers 3
New York Rangers 2

February 26, 2026 · Madison Square Garden

Luck index +35 Flyers lucky · −35 Rangers

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. Flyers win 7, Rangers win 3.

  1. 1 PHI 7 NYR 2
  2. 2 PHI 4 NYR 1
  3. 3 PHI 4 NYR 1
  4. 4 PHI 4 NYR 2
  5. 5 PHI 3 NYR 1
  6. 6 PHI 2 NYR 1
  7. 7 PHI 3 NYR 2
  8. 8 PHI 0 NYR 1
  9. 9 PHI 2 NYR 3
  10. 10 PHI 1 NYR 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 3,999.8 replays ended

Flyers win 65% of them, Rangers 35%. The line is what actually happened: Flyers by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flyers by 3+31.2%
Flyers by 213.4%
Flyers by 120.8%
Rangers by 120.7%
Rangers by 26.0%
Rangers by 3+7.9%

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 +0.3 goals to the Flyers: the final margin was Flyers by 1, without the luck Flyers by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flyers3122.80−0.80
Rangers3621.85+0.15

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 3:49 Boarding on the Flyers (Garnet Hathaway): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYR
P2 16:31 Cross checking on the Rangers (Brennan Othmann): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P2 11:33 High sticking on the Rangers (Conor Sheary): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P2 8:07 High sticking on the Flyers (Trevor Zegras): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYR
P2 6:43 Interference on the Rangers (Vincent Trocheck): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P3 12:32 Slashing on the Rangers (Alexis Lafrenière): 2 minutes on the power play +7% PHI
P3 5:20 High sticking on the Rangers (Vladislav Gavrikov): 2 minutes on the power play +9% PHI
P3 0:09 Interference goalkeeper on the Flyers (Matvei Michkov): 2 minutes on the power play +11% NYR

When it happened

Rangers’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 88%. 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 Rangers were ahead in it, below while the Flyers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 10:04 Sam Carrick scored on a wrist shot from 53 feetShooting · 1% chance +16% NYR –
2 P2 18:37 Alexis Lafrenière scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 17% chance +12% NYR –
3 P2 9:35 Matvei Michkov scored on a snap shot from 9 feetShooting · 21% chance +12% PHI –
4 P3 19:21 Trevor Zegras scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 8% chance +23% PHI –
5 P3 5:20 High sticking on the Rangers (Vladislav Gavrikov): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +9% PHI –
6 P3 3:59 Noah Cates’s wrist shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 23% chance +9% NYR –
7 P3 0:09 Interference goalkeeper on the Flyers (Matvei Michkov): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +11% NYR –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Flyers won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% PHI –

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

Flyers 66% · Rangers 34%

Final margin
Flyers by 1
Luck in goals
0.3 for the Flyers
Luck-adjusted margin
Flyers by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Flyers 65% · Rangers 35% 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.

All week 21 2025-26 games · Flyers · Rangers

More from week 21, 2025-26

Every game of week 21, 2025-26