2025-26 regular season · April 4, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Golden Knights at Oilers, Apr 4, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Golden Knights beat the Oilers 5–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Golden Knights win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 26 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.
The biggest swing (P1, 8:17 left): Brett Howden scored on a wrist shot from 21 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.
Final
 Vegas Golden Knights | 5 |
|---|---|
 Edmonton Oilers | 1 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +50 Golden Knights lucky · −50 Oilers
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. Golden Knights win 5, Oilers win 5.
- 1 VGK 4 EDM 0
- 2 VGK 5 EDM 2
- 3 VGK 3 EDM 1
- 4 VGK 2 EDM 1
- 5 VGK 7 EDM 6
- 6 VGK 1 EDM 2
- 7 VGK 1 EDM 2
- 8 VGK 1 EDM 3
- 9 VGK 2 EDM 5
- 10 VGK 2 EDM 6
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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 4,000.2 replays ended
Golden Knights win 50% of them, Oilers 50%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 4.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Golden Knights by 3+ | 20.1% |
| Golden Knights by 2 | 9.0% |
| Golden Knights by 1 | 20.6% |
| Oilers by 1 | 21.3% |
| Oilers by 2 | 10.2% |
| Oilers by 3+ | 18.9% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Golden Knights | 43 | 5 | 2.82 | +2.18 |
 Oilers | 49 | 1 | 3.16 | −2.16 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 18:51 | Holding on the Oilers (Connor Murphy): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% VGK |
| P1 11:51 | Slashing on the Golden Knights (Pavel Dorofeyev): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% EDM |
| P1 5:54 | Tripping on the Golden Knights (Noah Hanifin): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% EDM |
| P3 18:09 | Tripping on the Golden Knights (Kaedan Korczak): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% EDM |
| P3 5:35 | Tripping on the Oilers (Max Jones): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% VGK |
When it happened
Oilers’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 54%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 11:51 | Slashing on the Golden Knights (Pavel Dorofeyev): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% EDM | – |
| 2 | P1 8:17 | Brett Howden scored on a wrist shot from 21 feetShooting · 12% chance | +15% VGK | – |
| 3 | P1 5:54 | Tripping on the Golden Knights (Noah Hanifin): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% EDM | – |
| 4 | P1 3:54 | Matt Savoie’s backhand shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 12% chanceEvan Bouchard’s snap shot from 32 feet was savedShooting · 11% chance | +4% VGK | – |
| 5 | P2 14:16 | Colton Sissons scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 6% chance | +15% VGK | – |
| 6 | P2 11:55 | Jeremy Lauzon scored on a snap shot from 27 feetShooting · 10% chance | +8% VGK | – |
| 7 | P2 0:34 | Evan Bouchard scored on a snap shot from 33 feetShooting · 11% chance | +7% EDM | – |
| 8 | P3 15:56 | Mark Stone scored on a tip from 16 feetShooting · 7% chance | +6% VGK | – |
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
Golden Knights 61% · Oilers 39%
- Final margin
- Golden Knights by 4
- Luck in goals
- 3.3 for the Golden Knights
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Golden Knights by 0.7
- Replay with same day's form
- Golden Knights 50% · Oilers 50% unchanged: why
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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