luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

Conference finals 2025-26 · May 21, 2026

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

Golden Knights at Avalanche, Game 1, conference finals 2025-26: who deserved to win?

The Golden Knights beat the Avalanche 4–2, but the replays lean toward the Avalanche: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 37 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

The biggest swing (P2, 7:31 left): Dylan Coghlan scored on a wrist shot from 36 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

Final

Vegas Golden Knights 4
Colorado Avalanche 2

May 21, 2026 · Ball Arena

Luck index +72 Golden Knights very lucky · −72 Avalanche

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 3, Avalanche win 7.

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

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 28% of them, Avalanche 72%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Golden Knights by 3+6.6%
Golden Knights by 25.6%
Golden Knights by 116.1%
Avalanche by 120.5%
Avalanche by 211.8%
Avalanche by 3+39.3%

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 0.0 goals to the Avalanche: the final margin was Golden Knights by 2, without the luck Golden Knights by 2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Golden Knights3632.01+0.99
Avalanche5623.85−1.85

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 10:58 Hooking on the Avalanche (Brent Burns): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P1 0:51 Holding on the Golden Knights (Ivan Barbashev): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL
P2 5:44 Roughing on the Avalanche (Ross Colton): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
P2 0:36 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Ben Hutton): 2 minutes on the power play +3% COL
P3 3:08 High sticking on the Golden Knights (Shea Theodore): 2 minutes on the power play +1% COL

When it happened

Avalanche’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Golden Knights were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 2:31 Parker Kelly’s snap shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 29% chance +5% VGK –
2 P1 0:51 Holding on the Golden Knights (Ivan Barbashev): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% COL –
3 P2 7:31 Dylan Coghlan scored on a wrist shot from 36 feetShooting · 5% chance +21% VGK –
4 P2 5:44 Roughing on the Avalanche (Ross Colton): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% VGK –
5 P2 4:58 Pavel Dorofeyev scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 16% chance +14% VGK –
6 P3 18:26 Brett Howden scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 19% chance +6% VGK –
7 P3 2:21 Gabriel Landeskog scored on a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 10% chance +7% COL –
8 P3 0:51 Jack Eichel missed the net with a wrist shot from 34 feetEmpty-net goals · 81% chance +4% 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

Golden Knights 84% · Avalanche 16%

Final margin
Golden Knights by 2
Luck in goals
none
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 2.0
Replay with same day's form
Golden Knights 28% · Avalanche 72% 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.

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