luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 4, 2026 · SO

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

Maple Leafs at Devils, Mar 4, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Devils beat the Maple Leafs 4–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Maple Leafs had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 15 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

The biggest swing (SO): the Devils won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Devils.

Final (SO)

Toronto Maple Leafs 3
New Jersey Devils 4

March 4, 2026 · Prudential Center

Luck index +32 Devils lucky · −32 Maple Leafs

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. Maple Leafs win 3, Devils win 7.

  1. 1 TOR 5 NJD 2
  2. 2 TOR 2 NJD 1
  3. 3 TOR 5 NJD 4
  4. 4 TOR 6 NJD 7
  5. 5 TOR 1 NJD 2
  6. 6 TOR 1 NJD 3
  7. 7 TOR 4 NJD 7
  8. 8 TOR 1 NJD 4
  9. 9 TOR 2 NJD 6
  10. 10 TOR 3 NJD 9

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 4,000.1 replays ended

Maple Leafs win 32% of them, Devils 68%. The line is what actually happened: Devils by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Maple Leafs by 3+8.0%
Maple Leafs by 25.6%
Maple Leafs by 118.3%
Devils by 118.6%
Devils by 211.5%
Devils by 3+37.9%

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 +0.2 goals to the Maple Leafs: the final margin was Devils by 1, without the luck Devils by 1.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Maple Leafs3732.34+0.66
Devils6433.98−0.98

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 3:44 Slashing on the Devils (Cody Glass): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TOR
P2 18:39 Closing hand on puck on the Devils (Johnathan Kovacevic): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TOR
P2 16:10 Cross checking on the Devils (Brenden Dillon): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TOR
P2 10:49 Cross checking on the Maple Leafs (Brandon Carlo): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NJD
P2 8:24 Interference on the Maple Leafs (Philippe Myers): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NJD
P2 1:20 Hooking on the Maple Leafs (Dakota Joshua): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NJD

When it happened

Devils’ chance of winning

As low as 12% 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 Devils were ahead in it, below while the Maple Leafs were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:34 Matias Maccelli scored on a wrist shot from 27 feetShooting · 9% chance +15% TOR –
2 P1 12:05 Timo Meier scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 8% chance +16% NJD –
3 P2 16:40 William Nylander scored on a deflected shot from 13 feetShooting · 13% chance +17% TOR –
4 P2 13:54 Arseny Gritsyuk scored on a wrist shot from 35 feetShooting · 6% chance +19% NJD –
5 P3 6:10 Matthew Knies scored on a bat shot from 7 feetShooting · 15% chance +32% TOR –
6 P3 2:21 Connor Brown scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 12% chance +38% NJD –
7 P3 0:41 Nicholas Robertson’s backhand shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +7% NJD –
8 SO The Devils won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% NJD –

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

Maple Leafs 25% · Devils 75%

Final margin
Devils by 1
Luck in goals
0.2 for the Maple Leafs
Luck-adjusted margin
Devils by 1.2
Replay with same day's form
Maple Leafs 32% · Devils 68% 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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