luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

Second round 2025-26 · May 4, 2026

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

Wild at Avalanche, Game 1, second round 2025-26: who deserved to win?

The Avalanche beat the Wild 9–6, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10. The Wild had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 30 points of win probability to the Wild.

The biggest swing (P3, 16:39 left): Cale Makar scored on a wrist shot from 32 feet, worth 25 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

Final

Minnesota Wild 6
Colorado Avalanche 9

May 4, 2026 · Ball Arena

Luck index +39 Avalanche lucky · −39 Wild

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. Wild win 4, Avalanche win 6.

  1. 1 MIN 5 COL 2
  2. 2 MIN 4 COL 2
  3. 3 MIN 6 COL 5
  4. 4 MIN 3 COL 2
  5. 5 MIN 1 COL 2
  6. 6 MIN 2 COL 3
  7. 7 MIN 3 COL 5
  8. 8 MIN 3 COL 6
  9. 9 MIN 1 COL 4
  10. 10 MIN 1 COL 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 replays ended

Wild win 39% of them, Avalanche 61%. The line is what actually happened: Avalanche by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Wild by 3+12.4%
Wild by 28.4%
Wild by 118.0%
Avalanche by 119.8%
Avalanche by 211.0%
Avalanche by 3+30.3%

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 +1.4 goals to the Avalanche: the final margin was Avalanche by 3, without the luck Avalanche by 1.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Wild4962.92+3.08
Avalanche5583.51+4.49

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 11:46 Holding on the Avalanche (Nazem Kadri): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P1 7:36 Roughing on the Wild (Brock Faber): 2 minutes on the power play +3% COL
P2 19:39 Hooking on the Avalanche (Artturi Lehkonen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 3:59 Hooking on the Wild (Brock Faber): 2 minutes on the power play +5% COL
P3 11:07 Closing hand on puck on the Avalanche (Gabriel Landeskog): 2 minutes on the power play +2% MIN

When it happened

Avalanche’ chance of winning

As low as 28% 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 Avalanche were ahead in it, below while the Wild were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 8:48 Sam Malinski scored on a wrist shot from 35 feetShooting · 4% chance +16% COL –
2 P1 7:56 Jack Drury scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 6% chance +13% COL –
3 P2 13:15 Vladimir Tarasenko scored on a backhand shot from 9 feetShooting · 12% chance +13% MIN –
4 P2 7:17 Quinn Hughes scored on a wrist shot from 45 feetShooting · 3% chance +21% MIN –
5 P2 3:05 Marcus Foligno scored on a backhand shot from 4 feetShooting · 20% chance +19% MIN –
6 P2 1:56 Devon Toews scored on a wrist shot from 50 feetShooting · 2% chance +24% COL –
7 P3 16:39 Cale Makar scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 6% chance +25% COL –
8 P3 14:17 Nazem Kadri scored on a wrist shot from 37 feetShooting · 4% chance +14% COL –

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

Wild 19% · Avalanche 81%

Final margin
Avalanche by 3
Luck in goals
1.4 for the Avalanche
Luck-adjusted margin
Avalanche by 1.6
Replay with same day's form
Wild 39% · Avalanche 61% 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 second round 2025-26 games · Wild · Avalanche

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