luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

Second round 2025-26 · May 11, 2026

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

Golden Knights at Ducks, Game 4, second round 2025-26: who deserved to win?

The Ducks beat the Golden Knights 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Ducks win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 30 points of win probability to the Ducks.

The biggest swing (P2, 2:02 left): Alex Killorn scored on a snap shot from 11 feet, worth 20 points of win probability to the Ducks.

Final

Vegas Golden Knights 3
Anaheim Ducks 4

May 11, 2026 · Honda Center

Luck index +42 Ducks lucky · −42 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 4, Ducks win 6.

  1. 1 VGK 6 ANA 3
  2. 2 VGK 6 ANA 4
  3. 3 VGK 3 ANA 2
  4. 4 VGK 1 ANA 0
  5. 5 VGK 1 ANA 2
  6. 6 VGK 2 ANA 3
  7. 7 VGK 2 ANA 3
  8. 8 VGK 2 ANA 4
  9. 9 VGK 1 ANA 4
  10. 10 VGK 1 ANA 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 4,000 replays ended

Golden Knights win 42% of them, Ducks 58%. The line is what actually happened: Ducks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Golden Knights by 3+12.7%
Golden Knights by 28.6%
Golden Knights by 121.1%
Ducks by 124.1%
Ducks by 212.5%
Ducks by 3+20.9%

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.

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 +0.6 goals to the Ducks: the final margin was Ducks by 1, without the luck Ducks by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Golden Knights2832.30+0.70
Ducks4242.49+1.51

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 12:39 Interference on the Golden Knights (Dylan Coghlan): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P1 10:45 Interference on the Ducks (Ross Johnston): 2 minutes on the power play +3% VGK
P1 3:35 Cross checking on the Golden Knights (Brayden McNabb): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P2 3:17 Slashing on the Golden Knights (Cole Smith): 2 minutes on the power play +6% ANA
P2 0:00 Cross checking on the Ducks (Beckett Sennecke): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
P3 10:38 Hooking on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play +2% ANA
P3 5:24 Delaying game puck over glass on the Ducks (John Carlson): 2 minutes on the power play +1% VGK

When it happened

Ducks’ 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 Ducks were ahead in it, below while the Golden Knights were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:17 Beckett Sennecke scored on a slap shot from 47 feetShooting · 5% chance +16% ANA –
2 P1 9:38 Pavel Dorofeyev scored on a tip from 5 feetShooting · 22% chance +13% VGK –
3 P1 4:35 Mikael Granlund scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 11% chance +16% ANA –
4 P2 15:56 Brett Howden scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 18% chance +16% VGK –
5 P2 3:17 Slashing on the Golden Knights (Cole Smith): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% ANA –
6 P2 2:02 Alex Killorn scored on a snap shot from 11 feetShooting · 15% chance +20% ANA –
7 P3 18:31 Mitch Marner’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 27% chance +7% ANA –
8 P3 16:17 Ian Moore scored on a snap shot from 56 feetShooting · 2% chance +14% ANA –

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 48% · Ducks 52%

Final margin
Ducks by 1
Luck in goals
0.6 for the Ducks
Luck-adjusted margin
Ducks by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Golden Knights 42% · Ducks 58% 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 · Golden Knights · Ducks

More from second round, 2025-26

Every game of second round, 2025-26