luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 5, 2026

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

Islanders at Kings, Mar 5, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Kings beat the Islanders 5–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 16:43 left): Artemi Panarin scored on a wrist shot from 18 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Kings.

Final

New York Islanders 3
Los Angeles Kings 5

March 5, 2026 · Crypto.com Arena

Luck index +39 Kings lucky · −39 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 4, Kings win 6.

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

Islanders win 39% of them, Kings 61%. The line is what actually happened: Kings by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Islanders by 3+12.0%
Islanders by 28.1%
Islanders by 119.2%
Kings by 120.9%
Kings by 211.6%
Kings by 3+28.2%

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 Islanders: the final margin was Kings by 2, without the luck Kings by 3.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Islanders5533.25−0.25
Kings5153.18+1.82

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 16:04 Tripping on the Islanders (Carson Soucy): 2 minutes on the power play +3% LAK
P2 18:40 Too many men on the ice on the Kings (LAK): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 11:12 Too many men on the ice on the Kings (LAK): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 3:00 Tripping on the Kings (Alex Turcotte): 2 minutes on the power play +1% NYI
P3 18:37 Slashing on the Islanders (Ondrej Palat): 2 minutes on the power play +2% LAK
P3 17:20 Delaying game puck over glass on the Islanders (Ilya Sorokin): 2 minutes on the power play +1% LAK

When it happened

Kings’ 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 Kings were ahead in it, below while the Islanders were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 16:43 Artemi Panarin scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 13% chance +14% LAK –
2 P2 18:40 Too many men on the ice on the Kings (LAK): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NYI –
3 P2 11:12 Too many men on the ice on the Kings (LAK): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NYI –
4 P2 5:40 Samuel Helenius scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 10% chance +13% LAK –
5 P2 4:09 Mikey Anderson scored on a slap shot from 50 feetShooting · 2% chance +7% LAK –
6 P2 0:01 Bo Horvat scored on a wrist shot from 37 feetShooting · 5% chance +6% NYI –
7 P3 17:30 Alex Laferriere scored on a snap shot from 34 feetShooting · 7% chance +5% LAK –
8 P3 15:30 Adam Pelech scored on a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 12% chance +4% NYI –

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 4% · Kings 96%

Final margin
Kings by 2
Luck in goals
1.9 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Kings by 3.9
Replay with same day's form
Islanders 39% · Kings 61% 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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