luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

First round 2025-26 · April 22, 2026

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

Mammoth at Golden Knights, Game 2, first round 2025-26: who deserved to win?

The Mammoth beat the Golden Knights 3–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The game turned on a luck play (P2, 5:04 left): Dylan Guenther scored on a slap shot from 41 feet, worth 22 points of win probability to the Mammoth. The biggest single swing (P3, 6:00 left): Logan Cooley scored on a wrist shot from 15 feet.

Final

Utah Mammoth 3
Vegas Golden Knights 2

April 22, 2026 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +26 Mammoth lucky · −26 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 7, Golden Knights win 3.

  1. 1 UTA 7 VGK 1
  2. 2 UTA 6 VGK 2
  3. 3 UTA 4 VGK 1
  4. 4 UTA 5 VGK 2
  5. 5 UTA 4 VGK 2
  6. 6 UTA 4 VGK 3
  7. 7 UTA 2 VGK 1
  8. 8 UTA 4 VGK 5
  9. 9 UTA 2 VGK 3
  10. 10 UTA 3 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 3,999.9 replays ended

Mammoth win 74% of them, Golden Knights 26%. The line is what actually happened: Mammoth by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Mammoth by 3+44.1%
Mammoth by 212.7%
Mammoth by 117.1%
Golden Knights by 116.0%
Golden Knights by 24.4%
Golden Knights by 3+5.7%

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 +0.5 goals to the Golden Knights: the final margin was Mammoth by 1, without the luck Mammoth by 1.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Mammoth4333.68−0.68
Golden Knights3421.97+0.03

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 12:12 Roughing removing opponents helmet on the Golden Knights (Cole Smith): 2 minutes on the power play +4% UTA
P1 8:59 Interference on the Mammoth (Logan Cooley): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P1 6:06 Tripping on the Mammoth (Ian Cole): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P1 0:35 Interference on the Mammoth (Ian Cole): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 17:33 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Nic Dowd): 2 minutes on the power play +4% UTA
P2 12:11 Holding on the Golden Knights (Jack Eichel): 2 minutes on the power play +5% UTA
P2 7:28 Too many men on the ice on the Mammoth (UTA): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
P3 14:02 Delaying game puck over glass on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play +7% UTA

When it happened

Golden Knights’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 71%. 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 8:18 Mark Stone scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 5% chance +16% VGK –
2 P1 3:01 MacKenzie Weegar scored on a shot from 56 feetShooting · 2% chance +17% UTA –
3 P2 7:28 Too many men on the ice on the Mammoth (UTA): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% VGK –
4 P2 5:04 The game turned hereDylan Guenther scored on a slap shot from 41 feetShooting · 7% chance +22% UTA –
5 P2 4:02 Ivan Barbashev scored on a backhand shot from 13 feetShooting · 9% chance +22% VGK –
6 P3 14:02 Delaying game puck over glass on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% UTA –
7 P3 6:00 Logan Cooley scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 15% chance +32% UTA –
8 P3 0:05 Mark Stone’s wrist shot from 16 feet was savedShooting · 13% chance +6% 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 78% · Golden Knights 22%

Final margin
Mammoth by 1
Luck in goals
0.5 for the Golden Knights
Luck-adjusted margin
Mammoth by 1.5
Replay with same day's form
Mammoth 74% · Golden Knights 26% 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 · Mammoth · Golden Knights

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Every game of first round, 2025-26