luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

First round 2025-26 · April 21, 2026

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

Ducks at Oilers, Game 1, first round 2025-26: who deserved to win?

The Oilers beat the Ducks 4–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P3, 1:54 left): Kasperi Kapanen scored on a wrist shot from 13 feet, worth 38 points of win probability to the Oilers.

Final

Anaheim Ducks 3
Edmonton Oilers 4

April 21, 2026 · Rogers Place

Luck index +37 Oilers lucky · −37 Ducks

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. Ducks win 4, Oilers win 6.

  1. 1 ANA 6 EDM 3
  2. 2 ANA 6 EDM 4
  3. 3 ANA 4 EDM 3
  4. 4 ANA 3 EDM 2
  5. 5 ANA 1 EDM 2
  6. 6 ANA 4 EDM 5
  7. 7 ANA 2 EDM 4
  8. 8 ANA 1 EDM 4
  9. 9 ANA 0 EDM 3
  10. 10 ANA 1 EDM 6

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 4,000.1 replays ended

Ducks win 37% of them, Oilers 63%. The line is what actually happened: Oilers by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Ducks by 3+11.6%
Ducks by 27.3%
Ducks by 118.6%
Oilers by 121.4%
Oilers by 211.9%
Oilers by 3+29.2%

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 Oilers: the final margin was Oilers by 1, without the luck Oilers by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Ducks4632.83+0.17
Oilers5343.47+0.53

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
P2 17:41 Tripping on the Oilers (Jake Walman): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P2 14:01 Tripping on the Ducks (Alex Killorn): 2 minutes on the power play +5% EDM
P2 5:36 Cross checking on the Oilers (Darnell Nurse): 2 minutes on the power play +5% ANA
P2 4:06 Slashing on the Ducks (Alex Killorn): 2 minutes on the power play +5% EDM

When it happened

Oilers’ chance of winning

As low as 20% and as high as 100%. 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 Oilers were ahead in it, below while the Ducks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 2:39 Jason Dickinson scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 11% chance +16% EDM –
2 P1 1:39 Kasperi Kapanen scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 7% chance +13% EDM –
3 P2 19:41 Troy Terry scored on a wrist shot from 25 feetShooting · 6% chance +13% ANA –
4 P2 15:22 Leo Carlsson scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 16% chance +16% ANA –
5 P2 5:31 Troy Terry scored on a wrist shot from 42 feetShooting · 3% chance +23% ANA –
6 P3 8:30 Jason Dickinson scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 20% chance +27% EDM –
7 P3 1:54 Kasperi Kapanen scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 12% chance +38% EDM –
8 P3 0:15 Mikael Granlund missed the net with a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 18% chance +8% EDM –

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

Ducks 40% · Oilers 60%

Final margin
Oilers by 1
Luck in goals
0.3 for the Oilers
Luck-adjusted margin
Oilers by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Ducks 37% · Oilers 63% 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.

All first round 2025-26 games · Ducks · Oilers

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