luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 17, 2026 · OT

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

Rangers at Blue Jackets, Oct 17, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Blue Jackets beat the Rangers 1–0, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blue Jackets win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 55 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

The biggest swing (OT): the Blue Jackets won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

Final (OT)

New York Rangers 0
Columbus Blue Jackets 1

October 17, 2026 · Nationwide Arena

Our prediction before puck drop: Blue Jackets by 0.2

Luck index +58 Blue Jackets lucky · −58 Rangers

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. Rangers win 6, Blue Jackets win 4.

  1. 1 NYR 6 CBJ 1
  2. 2 NYR 4 CBJ 1
  3. 3 NYR 4 CBJ 1
  4. 4 NYR 3 CBJ 1
  5. 5 NYR 4 CBJ 3
  6. 6 NYR 2 CBJ 1
  7. 7 NYR 1 CBJ 2
  8. 8 NYR 2 CBJ 3
  9. 9 NYR 0 CBJ 2
  10. 10 NYR 2 CBJ 5

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Blue Jackets by 0.2, 54% to win. The Blue Jackets won by 1: the pick was right. The final margin was 0.8 goals from ours; 79% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Rangers win46.4%
Blue Jackets win53.6%
Middle 50%: Rangers by 2 to Blue Jackets by 250%
Middle 90%: Rangers by 4 to Blue Jackets by 490%
Middle 95%: Rangers by 4 to Blue Jackets by 595%
Exactly Blue Jackets by 121.5%
Exactly Rangers by 119.6%
Exactly Blue Jackets by 312.9%
Exactly Rangers by 310.4%
Exactly Blue Jackets by 210.2%

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 Sat, Oct 17, 6:42 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

Rangers win 58% of them, Blue Jackets 42%. The line is what actually happened: Blue Jackets by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Rangers by 3+26.1%
Rangers by 211.2%
Rangers by 120.4%
Blue Jackets by 121.4%
Blue Jackets by 28.4%
Blue Jackets by 3+12.4%

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 Blue Jackets: the final margin was Blue Jackets by 1, without the luck Rangers by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Rangers4602.96−2.96
Blue Jackets4102.45−2.45

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 6:13 Holding on the Rangers (Vladislav Gavrikov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P2 12:13 Holding on the Rangers (Sean Durzi): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CBJ
P3 19:42 Holding on the Blue Jackets (Adam Fantilli): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NYR
P3 15:43 Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Jake Christiansen): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NYR
P3 10:11 Hooking on the Blue Jackets (Cole Sillinger): 2 minutes on the power play +7% NYR
P3 0:33 Interference on the Rangers (Will Cuylle): 2 minutes on the power play +11% CBJ

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ 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 Blue Jackets were ahead in it, below while the Rangers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 0:11 Gabe Perreault’s wrist shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +5% CBJ –
2 P3 19:42 Holding on the Blue Jackets (Adam Fantilli): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% NYR –
3 P3 15:43 Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Jake Christiansen): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% NYR –
4 P3 10:11 Hooking on the Blue Jackets (Cole Sillinger): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% NYR –
5 P3 7:13 Pavel Dorofeyev missed the net with a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 25% chance +9% CBJ –
6 P3 0:33 Interference on the Rangers (Will Cuylle): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +11% CBJ –
7 P3 0:16 Matthew Knies’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 24% chance +11% NYR –
8 OT The Blue Jackets won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% CBJ –

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

Rangers 59% · Blue Jackets 41%

Final margin
Blue Jackets by 1
Luck in goals
1.4 for the Blue Jackets
Luck-adjusted margin
Rangers by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Rangers 58% · Blue Jackets 42% 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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