2026-27 regular season · October 13, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Golden Knights at Predators, Oct 13, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Golden Knights beat the Predators 5–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Golden Knights win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 38 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.
The biggest swing (P2, 2:16 left): William Karlsson scored on a snap shot from 33 feet, worth 23 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.
Final
 Vegas Golden Knights | 5 |
|---|---|
 Nashville Predators | 2 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +59 Golden Knights lucky · −59 Predators
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, Predators win 6.
- 1 VGK 4 NSH 1
- 2 VGK 2 NSH 0
- 3 VGK 4 NSH 3
- 4 VGK 2 NSH 1
- 5 VGK 1 NSH 2
- 6 VGK 3 NSH 4
- 7 VGK 0 NSH 1
- 8 VGK 2 NSH 4
- 9 VGK 3 NSH 6
- 10 VGK 1 NSH 4
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Golden Knights by 0.6, 60% to win. The Golden Knights won by 3: the pick was right. The final margin was 2.4 goals from ours; 33% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Golden Knights win | 59.5% |
| Predators win | 40.5% |
| Middle 50%: Golden Knights by 3 to Predators by 1 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Golden Knights by 4 to Predators by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Golden Knights by 5 to Predators by 4 | 95% |
| Exactly Golden Knights by 1 | 21.7% |
| Exactly Predators by 1 | 18.6% |
| Exactly Golden Knights by 3 | 14.6% |
| Exactly Golden Knights by 2 | 11.9% |
| Exactly Predators by 3 | 8.8% |
Most of the distance between a forecast and a final score is luck: a hot goalie, a post or a deflection moves a hockey score more than anything known before the game. Made Tue, Oct 13, 1:55 pm ET and frozen at puck drop. How our predictions have done
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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 4,000.2 replays ended
Golden Knights win 41% of them, Predators 59%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 3.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Golden Knights by 3+ | 10.6% |
| Golden Knights by 2 | 8.9% |
| Golden Knights by 1 | 21.4% |
| Predators by 1 | 25.2% |
| Predators by 2 | 12.5% |
| Predators by 3+ | 21.5% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Golden Knights | 35 | 5 | 1.86 | +3.14 |
 Predators | 38 | 2 | 2.40 | −0.40 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 15:24 | Interference on the Golden Knights (Brett Howden): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% NSH |
| P1 9:16 | Holding on the Golden Knights (Ivan Barbashev): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% NSH |
| P2 12:19 | Hooking on the Predators (Adam Wilsby): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% VGK |
| P3 18:53 | Hooking on the Golden Knights (Mitch Marner): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% NSH |
| P3 10:57 | Cross checking on the Predators (Nils Hoglander): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% VGK |
When it happened
Predators’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 70%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 16:05 | Ryan O'Reilly scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 11% chance | +14% NSH | – |
| 2 | P1 13:14 | Tomas Hertl scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 5% chance | +15% VGK | – |
| 3 | P1 7:12 | Jack Eichel scored on a tip from 11 feetShooting · 9% chance | +16% VGK | – |
| 4 | P2 11:15 | Adam Edstrom scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 12% chance | +19% NSH | – |
| 5 | P2 2:16 | William Karlsson scored on a snap shot from 33 feetShooting · 7% chance | +23% VGK | – |
| 6 | P3 18:53 | Hooking on the Golden Knights (Mitch Marner): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% NSH | – |
| 7 | P3 15:11 | Trevor Connelly scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 13% chance | +14% VGK | – |
| 8 | P3 13:36 | Brett Howden scored on a tip from 54 feetShooting · 1% chance | +5% VGK | – |
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 60% · Predators 40%
- Final margin
- Golden Knights by 3
- Luck in goals
- 2.7 for the Golden Knights
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Golden Knights by 0.3
- Replay with same day's form
- Golden Knights 41% · Predators 59% unchanged: why
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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