luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

First round 2025-26 · April 25, 2026

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

Golden Knights at Mammoth, Game 3, first round 2025-26: who deserved to win?

The Mammoth beat the Golden Knights 4–2, but the replays lean toward the Golden Knights: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 21 points of win probability to the Mammoth.

The biggest swing (P1, 7:01 left): MacKenzie Weegar scored on a slap shot from 39 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Mammoth.

Final

Vegas Golden Knights 2
Utah Mammoth 4

April 25, 2026 · Delta Center

Luck index +70 Mammoth very lucky · −70 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. Golden Knights win 7, Mammoth win 3.

  1. 1 VGK 6 UTA 1
  2. 2 VGK 4 UTA 0
  3. 3 VGK 9 UTA 6
  4. 4 VGK 5 UTA 2
  5. 5 VGK 3 UTA 1
  6. 6 VGK 3 UTA 2
  7. 7 VGK 2 UTA 1
  8. 8 VGK 2 UTA 3
  9. 9 VGK 2 UTA 3
  10. 10 VGK 0 UTA 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

Golden Knights win 70% of them, Mammoth 30%. The line is what actually happened: Mammoth by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Golden Knights by 3+39.0%
Golden Knights by 212.1%
Golden Knights by 119.2%
Mammoth by 116.6%
Mammoth by 25.9%
Mammoth by 3+7.3%

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 +2.9 goals to the Mammoth: the final margin was Mammoth by 2, without the luck Golden Knights by 0.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Golden Knights5523.53−1.53
Mammoth3441.71+2.29

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 10:18 Interference goalkeeper on the Mammoth (Alexander Kerfoot): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P1 3:30 High sticking on the Golden Knights (Brayden McNabb): 2 minutes on the power play +4% UTA
P2 2:37 Interference on the Mammoth (Nate Schmidt): 2 minutes on the power play +1% VGK
P3 12:15 Roughing on the Mammoth (MacKenzie Weegar): 2 minutes on the power play +1% VGK
P3 6:25 Interference on the Mammoth (Liam O'Brien): 2 minutes on the power play 0% VGK

When it happened

Mammoth’ 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 Mammoth were ahead in it, below while the Golden Knights were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:19 Brett Howden’s snap shot from 10 feet was savedShooting · 18% chance +3% UTA –
2 P1 13:12 Clayton Keller missed the net with a snap shot from 16 feetShooting · 21% chance +3% VGK –
3 P1 10:18 Interference goalkeeper on the Mammoth (Alexander Kerfoot): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% VGK –
4 P1 7:01 MacKenzie Weegar scored on a slap shot from 39 feetShooting · 7% chance +16% UTA –
5 P1 3:30 High sticking on the Golden Knights (Brayden McNabb): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% UTA –
6 P1 2:15 Dylan Guenther scored on a slap shot from 41 feetShooting · 7% chance +13% UTA –
7 P2 15:54 Lawson Crouse scored on a tip from 14 feetShooting · 7% chance +8% UTA –
8 P2 10:12 Lawson Crouse scored on a snap shot from 43 feetShooting · 5% chance +3% 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

Golden Knights 64% · Mammoth 36%

Final margin
Mammoth by 2
Luck in goals
2.9 for the Mammoth
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 0.9
Replay with same day's form
Golden Knights 70% · Mammoth 30% 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 · Golden Knights · Mammoth

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