luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 4, 2026

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

Islanders at Ducks, Mar 4, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Ducks beat the Islanders 5–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Ducks win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 25 points of win probability to the Ducks.

The biggest swing (P1, 7:04 left): Cutter Gauthier scored on a snap shot from 28 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Ducks.

Final

New York Islanders 1
Anaheim Ducks 5

March 4, 2026 · Honda Center

Luck index +56 Ducks lucky · −56 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. Islanders win 6, Ducks win 4.

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

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

Islanders win 56% of them, Ducks 44%. The line is what actually happened: Ducks by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Islanders by 3+28.3%
Islanders by 210.2%
Islanders by 117.5%
Ducks by 119.2%
Ducks by 28.8%
Ducks by 3+16.0%

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 +2.8 goals to the Ducks: the final margin was Ducks by 4, without the luck Ducks by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Islanders6213.94−2.94
Ducks4242.85+1.15

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 19:00 High sticking on the Islanders (Matthew Schaefer): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P1 16:33 Tripping on the Ducks (Mason McTavish): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 7:46 Hooking on the Islanders (Tony DeAngelo): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P2 19:45 Delaying game puck over glass on the Ducks (Pavel Mintyukov): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI
P2 11:12 Tripping on the Islanders (Casey Cizikas): 2 minutes on the power play +3% ANA
P2 6:29 Tripping on the Ducks (Cutter Gauthier): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI
P2 2:17 Slashing on the Ducks (Mason McTavish): 2 minutes on the power play +2% NYI
P3 12:03 Interference on the Islanders (Mathew Barzal): 2 minutes on the power play +1% ANA

When it happened

Ducks’ chance of winning

As low as 36% 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 Ducks were ahead in it, below while the Islanders were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:02 Anders Lee scored on a snap shot from 14 feetShooting · 20% chance +13% NYI –
2 P1 13:17 Beckett Sennecke’s snap shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 41% chance +7% NYI –
3 P1 8:42 Anders Lee’s snap shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 28% chance +4% ANA –
4 P1 7:46 Hooking on the Islanders (Tony DeAngelo): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% ANA –
5 P1 7:04 Cutter Gauthier scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 12% chance +16% ANA –
6 P1 3:55 Cutter Gauthier scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 12% chance +16% ANA –
7 P1 1:20 Beckett Sennecke scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 18% chance +11% ANA –
8 P3 17:49 Ryan Poehling scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 12% chance +5% ANA –

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

Islanders 31% · Ducks 69%

Final margin
Ducks by 4
Luck in goals
2.9 for the Ducks
Luck-adjusted margin
Ducks by 1.1
Replay with same day's form
Islanders 56% · Ducks 44% 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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