luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · April 3, 2026

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

Flyers at Islanders, Apr 3, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Flyers beat the Islanders 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Flyers win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 14 points of win probability to the Flyers.

The biggest swing (P1, 4:59 left): Alex Bump scored on a wrist shot from 38 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Flyers.

Final

Philadelphia Flyers 4
New York Islanders 1

April 3, 2026 · UBS Arena

Luck index +51 Flyers lucky · −51 Islanders

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. Flyers win 5, Islanders win 5.

  1. 1 PHI 4 NYI 0
  2. 2 PHI 5 NYI 2
  3. 3 PHI 5 NYI 3
  4. 4 PHI 3 NYI 2
  5. 5 PHI 2 NYI 1
  6. 6 PHI 2 NYI 3
  7. 7 PHI 1 NYI 2
  8. 8 PHI 1 NYI 3
  9. 9 PHI 0 NYI 3
  10. 10 PHI 0 NYI 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

Flyers win 49% of them, Islanders 51%. The line is what actually happened: Flyers by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flyers by 3+16.3%
Flyers by 29.9%
Flyers by 122.5%
Islanders by 123.5%
Islanders by 210.4%
Islanders by 3+17.4%

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 +0.5 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Flyers by 3, without the luck Flyers by 3.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flyers3142.26+1.74
Islanders3712.40−1.40

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 12:17 Hooking on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P1 4:51 High sticking on the Islanders (Marc Gatcomb): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P2 16:06 Hooking on the Flyers (Luke Glendening): 2 minutes on the power play +2% NYI
P2 7:10 Tripping on the Flyers (Travis Konecny): 2 minutes on the power play +1% NYI
P3 18:00 Interference on the Flyers (Matvei Michkov): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI

When it happened

Islanders’ 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 Islanders were ahead in it, below while the Flyers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:47 Tyson Foerster missed the net with a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 26% chance +4% NYI –
2 P1 10:18 Porter Martone’s deflected shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 26% chance +4% NYI –
3 P1 6:06 Owen Tippett scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 16% chance +15% PHI –
4 P1 4:59 Alex Bump scored on a wrist shot from 38 feetShooting · 2% chance +15% PHI –
5 P2 17:08 Matvei Michkov scored on a backhand shot from 11 feetShooting · 3% chance +10% PHI –
6 P2 4:23 Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 12% chance +7% NYI –
7 P2 2:48 Anders Lee’s snap shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 31% chance +5% PHI –
8 P3 10:44 Travis Sanheim scored on a snap shot from 36 feetShooting · 6% chance +4% PHI –

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

Flyers 97% · Islanders 3%

Final margin
Flyers by 3
Luck in goals
0.5 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Flyers by 3.5
Replay with same day's form
Flyers 49% · Islanders 51% 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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