luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 16, 2026

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

Kings at Rangers, Mar 16, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Kings beat the Rangers 4–1, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 6:31 left): Drew Doughty scored on a wrist shot from 61 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Kings.

Final

Los Angeles Kings 4
New York Rangers 1

March 16, 2026 · Madison Square Garden

Luck index +40 Kings lucky · −40 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. Kings win 6, Rangers win 4.

  1. 1 LAK 5 NYR 1
  2. 2 LAK 3 NYR 0
  3. 3 LAK 4 NYR 2
  4. 4 LAK 3 NYR 1
  5. 5 LAK 3 NYR 2
  6. 6 LAK 4 NYR 3
  7. 7 LAK 1 NYR 2
  8. 8 LAK 1 NYR 2
  9. 9 LAK 2 NYR 4
  10. 10 LAK 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 3,999.9 replays ended

Kings win 60% of them, Rangers 40%. The line is what actually happened: Kings by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Kings by 3+25.6%
Kings by 212.1%
Kings by 122.4%
Rangers by 123.3%
Rangers by 28.0%
Rangers by 3+8.5%

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 +1.6 goals to the Kings: the final margin was Kings by 3, without the luck Kings by 1.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Kings3832.52+0.48
Rangers3811.89−0.89

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 11:18 Tripping on the Kings (Quinton Byfield): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYR
P2 15:12 High sticking on the Rangers (Vincent Trocheck): 2 minutes on the power play +3% LAK
P2 10:47 Hooking on the Rangers (Matthew Robertson): 2 minutes on the power play +2% LAK
P3 18:45 Boarding on the Kings (Alex Laferriere): 2 minutes on the power play +1% NYR

When it happened

Rangers’ 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 Rangers were ahead in it, below while the Kings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:18 Tripping on the Kings (Quinton Byfield): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NYR –
2 P1 10:31 Alexis Lafrenière’s wrist shot from 19 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +3% LAK –
3 P1 8:01 Gabe Perreault’s snap shot from 18 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +3% LAK –
4 P1 6:31 Drew Doughty scored on a wrist shot from 61 feetShooting · 1% chance +18% LAK –
5 P2 19:31 J.T. Miller’s wrist shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 16% chance +3% LAK –
6 P2 15:29 Mikey Anderson scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 13% chance +14% LAK –
7 P2 15:01 Alex Laferriere scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 19% chance +8% LAK –
8 P3 17:31 Vincent Trocheck scored on a tip from 12 feetShooting · 9% chance +6% NYR –

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

Kings 84% · Rangers 16%

Final margin
Kings by 3
Luck in goals
1.6 for the Kings
Luck-adjusted margin
Kings by 1.4
Replay with same day's form
Kings 60% · Rangers 40% 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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