luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 16, 2026

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

Penguins at Avalanche, Oct 16, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Avalanche beat the Penguins 5–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Avalanche win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 18 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

The biggest swing (P2, 15:36 left): Gabriel Landeskog scored on a wrist shot from 8 feet, worth 17 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

Final

Pittsburgh Penguins 2
Colorado Avalanche 5

October 16, 2026 · Ball Arena

Our prediction before puck drop: Avalanche by 0.5

Luck index +45 Avalanche lucky · −45 Penguins

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. Penguins win 4, Avalanche win 6.

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

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Avalanche by 0.5, 59% to win. The Avalanche won by 3: the pick was right. The final margin was 2.5 goals from ours; 34% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Penguins win41.4%
Avalanche win58.6%
Middle 50%: Penguins by 1 to Avalanche by 350%
Middle 90%: Penguins by 4 to Avalanche by 490%
Middle 95%: Penguins by 4 to Avalanche by 595%
Exactly Avalanche by 122.1%
Exactly Penguins by 118.5%
Exactly Avalanche by 314.5%
Exactly Avalanche by 211.0%
Exactly Penguins by 38.9%

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 Fri, Oct 16, 8:46 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.

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

Penguins win 45% of them, Avalanche 55%. The line is what actually happened: Avalanche by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Penguins by 3+17.7%
Penguins by 29.0%
Penguins by 118.2%
Avalanche by 118.4%
Avalanche by 210.0%
Avalanche by 3+26.8%

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 +0.8 goals to the Avalanche: the final margin was Avalanche by 3, without the luck Avalanche by 2.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Penguins5123.61−1.61
Avalanche4453.87+1.13

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 5:49 High sticking on the Penguins (Tommy Novak): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL
P1 2:35 Interference on the Avalanche (Gavin Brindley): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P2 8:16 Interference on the Avalanche (Gabriel Landeskog): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P2 7:07 Slashing on the Penguins (Ben Kindel): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL
P3 11:00 Tripping on the Avalanche (Josh Manson): 2 minutes on the power play +2% PIT
P3 6:37 Interference on the Penguins (Tommy Novak): 2 minutes on the power play +2% COL
P3 2:09 Hooking on the Penguins (Kris Letang): 2 minutes on the power play 0% COL

When it happened

Avalanche’ chance of winning

As low as 22% 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 Penguins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:32 Evgeni Malkin scored on a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 12% chance +15% PIT –
2 P1 11:03 Bryan Rust scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 20% chance +12% PIT –
3 P1 8:59 Artturi Lehkonen scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 12% chance +13% COL –
4 P2 19:35 Artturi Lehkonen scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 13% chance +17% COL –
5 P2 15:51 Nathan MacKinnon’s wrist shot from 19 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance +4% PIT –
6 P2 15:36 Gabriel Landeskog scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 12% chance +17% COL –
7 P2 7:07 Slashing on the Penguins (Ben Kindel): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% COL –
8 P2 5:03 T.J. Hughes scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 18% chance +12% 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

Penguins 16% · Avalanche 84%

Final margin
Avalanche by 3
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Avalanche
Luck-adjusted margin
Avalanche by 2.2
Replay with same day's form
Penguins 45% · Avalanche 55% 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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