luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 25, 2026

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

Rangers at Maple Leafs, Mar 25, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Maple Leafs beat the Rangers 4–3, but the replays lean toward the Rangers: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 30 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

The biggest swing (P1, 14:45 left): Jake McCabe scored on a wrist shot from 18 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

Final

New York Rangers 3
Toronto Maple Leafs 4

March 25, 2026 · Scotiabank Arena

Luck index +71 Maple Leafs very lucky · −71 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. Rangers win 7, Maple Leafs win 3.

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

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

Rangers win 71% of them, Maple Leafs 29%. The line is what actually happened: Maple Leafs by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Rangers by 3+41.3%
Rangers by 212.1%
Rangers by 118.0%
Maple Leafs by 117.1%
Maple Leafs by 25.4%
Maple Leafs by 3+6.1%

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 +2.5 goals to the Maple Leafs: the final margin was Maple Leafs by 1, without the luck Rangers by 1.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Rangers5933.89−0.89
Maple Leafs2741.60+2.40

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 3:05 Holding on the Rangers (Matthew Robertson): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TOR
P2 18:38 Cross checking on the Maple Leafs (Dakota Joshua): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYR
P2 10:05 Roughing on the Maple Leafs (Simon Benoit): 2 minutes on the power play +1% NYR
P2 2:58 Slashing on the Maple Leafs (Oliver Ekman-Larsson): 2 minutes on the power play +2% NYR
P3 11:40 Holding on the Rangers (Braden Schneider): 2 minutes on the power play +5% TOR
P3 0:20 Cross checking on the Maple Leafs (Jake McCabe): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NYR

When it happened

Maple Leafs’ 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 Maple Leafs were ahead in it, below while the Rangers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:45 Jake McCabe scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 14% chance +14% TOR –
2 P1 10:44 J.T. Miller’s wrist shot from 2 feet was savedShooting · 44% chance +7% TOR –
3 P1 7:52 Nicholas Robertson scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 8% chance +12% TOR –
4 P2 14:19 Dakota Joshua scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 6% chance +8% TOR –
5 P2 1:59 Mika Zibanejad scored on a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 10% chance +13% NYR –
6 P3 8:03 John Tavares scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 4% chance +11% TOR –
7 P3 6:56 Mika Zibanejad scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 12% chance +10% NYR –
8 P3 1:19 Alexis Lafrenière’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 16% chance +7% 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

Rangers 85% · Maple Leafs 15%

Final margin
Maple Leafs by 1
Luck in goals
2.5 for the Maple Leafs
Luck-adjusted margin
Rangers by 1.5
Replay with same day's form
Rangers 71% · Maple Leafs 29% 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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