luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 18, 2026

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

Devils at Rangers, Mar 18, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Devils beat the Rangers 6–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 8 of 10. The Rangers had the bounces: shooting alone was worth 12 points of win probability to the Rangers.

The biggest swing (P2, 8:24 left): Connor Brown scored on a wrist shot from 11 feet, worth 19 points of win probability to the Devils.

Final

New Jersey Devils 6
New York Rangers 3

March 18, 2026 · Madison Square Garden

Luck index +21 Devils about even · −21 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. Devils win 8, Rangers win 2.

  1. 1 NJD 7 NYR 1
  2. 2 NJD 5 NYR 0
  3. 3 NJD 5 NYR 1
  4. 4 NJD 5 NYR 2
  5. 5 NJD 3 NYR 0
  6. 6 NJD 6 NYR 3
  7. 7 NJD 4 NYR 2
  8. 8 NJD 2 NYR 1
  9. 9 NJD 3 NYR 4
  10. 10 NJD 3 NYR 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 4,000 replays ended

Devils win 79% of them, Rangers 21%. The line is what actually happened: Devils by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Devils by 3+54.7%
Devils by 210.2%
Devils by 113.7%
Rangers by 114.1%
Rangers by 23.5%
Rangers by 3+3.8%

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 +0.3 goals to the Devils: the final margin was Devils by 3, without the luck Devils by 2.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Devils5764.26+1.74
Rangers3031.67+1.33

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 4:05 Holding on the Rangers (Gabe Perreault): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NJD
P2 14:28 Holding on the Rangers (J.T. Miller): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NJD
P2 10:48 Hooking on the Devils (Johnathan Kovacevic): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYR
P2 8:51 Hooking on the Rangers (Alexis Lafrenière): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NJD
P2 7:28 Slashing on the Devils (Simon Nemec): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYR
P3 15:42 Tripping on the Rangers (Mika Zibanejad): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NJD

When it happened

Rangers’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 71%. 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 Devils were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:56 Maxim Tsyplakov hit the right post with a wrist shot from 1 feetShooting · 75% chance +13% NYR –
2 P1 4:40 Vladislav Gavrikov scored on a snap shot from 48 feetShooting · 4% chance +17% NYR –
3 P1 0:44 Arseny Gritsyuk scored on a snap shot from 29 feetShooting · 5% chance +18% NJD –
4 P2 19:41 Mika Zibanejad scored on a snap shot from 31 feetShooting · 10% chance +17% NYR –
5 P2 8:24 Connor Brown scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 16% chance +19% NJD –
6 P3 13:31 Timo Meier scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 16% chance +13% NJD –
7 P3 10:19 Conor Sheary scored on a snap shot from 13 feetShooting · 16% chance +12% NYR –
8 P3 6:55 Jack Hughes scored on a wrist shot from 36 feetShooting · 4% chance +12% 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

Devils 95% · Rangers 5%

Final margin
Devils by 3
Luck in goals
0.3 for the Devils
Luck-adjusted margin
Devils by 2.7
Replay with same day's form
Devils 79% · Rangers 21% 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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