luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 15, 2026

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

Maple Leafs at Wild, Mar 15, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Maple Leafs beat the Wild 4–2, but the replays lean toward the Wild: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 32 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

The biggest swing (P2, 18:53 left): Morgan Rielly scored on a wrist shot from 26 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

Final

Toronto Maple Leafs 4
Minnesota Wild 2

March 15, 2026 · Grand Casino Arena

Luck index +67 Maple Leafs very lucky · −67 Wild

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, Wild win 7.

  1. 1 TOR 6 MIN 3
  2. 2 TOR 2 MIN 1
  3. 3 TOR 2 MIN 1
  4. 4 TOR 1 MIN 2
  5. 5 TOR 1 MIN 2
  6. 6 TOR 0 MIN 2
  7. 7 TOR 1 MIN 4
  8. 8 TOR 1 MIN 4
  9. 9 TOR 3 MIN 7
  10. 10 TOR 3 MIN 8

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

Maple Leafs win 33% of them, Wild 67%. The line is what actually happened: Maple Leafs by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Maple Leafs by 3+7.4%
Maple Leafs by 26.5%
Maple Leafs by 118.7%
Wild by 120.8%
Wild by 212.9%
Wild by 3+33.6%

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 +3.0 goals to the Maple Leafs: the final margin was Maple Leafs by 2, without the luck Wild by 1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Maple Leafs3431.79+1.21
Wild5723.16−1.16

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
P2 10:31 Holding the stick on the Maple Leafs (Calle Jarnkrok): 2 minutes on the power play +2% MIN
P2 2:42 Hooking on the Wild (Yakov Trenin): 2 minutes on the power play +1% TOR
P3 8:38 Slashing on the Maple Leafs (Nicholas Robertson): 2 minutes on the power play +6% MIN

When it happened

Wild’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Wild were ahead in it, below while the Maple Leafs were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 18:53 Morgan Rielly scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 6% chance +18% TOR –
2 P2 17:41 Bo Groulx scored on a deflected shot from 34 feetShooting · 3% chance +15% TOR –
3 P2 11:42 Bo Groulx scored on a wrist shot from 37 feetShooting · 4% chance +9% TOR –
4 P3 19:20 Joel Eriksson Ek missed the net with a wrist shot from 41 feetEmpty-net goals · 63% chance +4% TOR –
5 P3 15:09 Vladimir Tarasenko scored on a snap shot from 9 feetShooting · 15% chance +5% MIN –
6 P3 14:46 Vladimir Tarasenko scored on a wrist shot from 29 feetShooting · 4% chance +15% MIN –
7 P3 8:38 Slashing on the Maple Leafs (Nicholas Robertson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% MIN –
8 P3 4:26 Ryan Hartman’s snap shot from 23 feet was savedShooting · 13% chance +5% TOR –

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 28% · Wild 72%

Final margin
Maple Leafs by 2
Luck in goals
3.0 for the Maple Leafs
Luck-adjusted margin
Wild by 1.0
Replay with same day's form
Maple Leafs 33% · Wild 67% 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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