luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 19, 2026

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

Mammoth at Golden Knights, Mar 19, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Mammoth beat the Golden Knights 4–0, but the replays lean toward the Golden Knights: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 22 points of win probability to the Mammoth.

The biggest swing (P1, 17:08 left): Clayton Keller scored on a wrist shot from 9 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Mammoth.

Final

Utah Mammoth 4
Vegas Golden Knights 0

March 19, 2026 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +69 Mammoth very lucky · −69 Golden Knights

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. Mammoth win 3, Golden Knights win 7.

  1. 1 UTA 6 VGK 3
  2. 2 UTA 3 VGK 2
  3. 3 UTA 2 VGK 1
  4. 4 UTA 2 VGK 3
  5. 5 UTA 4 VGK 5
  6. 6 UTA 2 VGK 4
  7. 7 UTA 1 VGK 4
  8. 8 UTA 0 VGK 3
  9. 9 UTA 0 VGK 4
  10. 10 UTA 0 VGK 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 3,999.8 replays ended

Mammoth win 31% of them, Golden Knights 69%. The line is what actually happened: Mammoth by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Mammoth by 3+7.0%
Mammoth by 26.5%
Mammoth by 117.7%
Golden Knights by 120.5%
Golden Knights by 212.6%
Golden Knights by 3+35.7%

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 +3.3 goals to the Mammoth: the final margin was Mammoth by 4, without the luck Mammoth by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Mammoth2631.74+1.26
Golden Knights5603.96−3.96

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 4:14 Holding on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play +2% UTA
P3 14:35 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Nic Dowd): 2 minutes on the power play +1% UTA
P3 11:43 Interference on the Mammoth (Kevin Stenlund): 2 minutes on the power play +1% VGK
P3 4:06 Roughing on the Mammoth (Alexander Kerfoot): 2 minutes on the power play 0% VGK

When it happened

Golden Knights’ 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 Golden Knights were ahead in it, below while the Mammoth were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:58 Ivan Barbashev’s snap shot from 27 feet was savedShooting · 14% chance +2% UTA –
2 P1 18:51 Jack Eichel’s wrist shot from 11 feet was savedShooting · 14% chance +2% UTA –
3 P1 17:08 Clayton Keller scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 12% chance +14% UTA –
4 P1 15:50 Mark Stone missed the net with a backhand shot from 13 feetShooting · 9% chance +2% UTA –
5 P1 13:55 Clayton Keller scored on a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 14% chance +13% UTA –
6 P1 11:48 Jack McBain scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 11% chance +10% UTA –
7 P1 4:32 Ivan Barbashev missed the net with a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 13% chance +1% UTA –
8 P1 4:14 Holding on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +2% UTA –

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

Mammoth 66% · Golden Knights 34%

Final margin
Mammoth by 4
Luck in goals
3.3 for the Mammoth
Luck-adjusted margin
Mammoth by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Mammoth 31% · Golden Knights 69% 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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