luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 20, 2026

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

Maple Leafs at Blue Jackets, Oct 20, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Maple Leafs beat the Blue Jackets 6–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Maple Leafs win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 22 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

The biggest swing (P2, 17:34 left): William Nylander scored on a wrist shot from 34 feet, worth 19 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

Final

Toronto Maple Leafs 6
Columbus Blue Jackets 2

October 20, 2026 · Nationwide Arena

Our prediction before puck drop: Blue Jackets by 0.6

Luck index +57 Maple Leafs lucky · −57 Blue Jackets

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. Maple Leafs win 4, Blue Jackets win 6.

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

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Blue Jackets by 0.6, 60% to win. The Maple Leafs won by 4, a result we gave 40%. The final margin was 4.6 goals from ours; 3% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Maple Leafs win40.0%
Blue Jackets win60.0%
Middle 50%: Maple Leafs by 1 to Blue Jackets by 350%
Middle 90%: Maple Leafs by 4 to Blue Jackets by 490%
Middle 95%: Maple Leafs by 4 to Blue Jackets by 595%
Exactly Blue Jackets by 122.2%
Exactly Maple Leafs by 118.1%
Exactly Blue Jackets by 315.0%
Exactly Blue Jackets by 211.2%
Exactly Maple Leafs by 38.5%

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 20, 11:27 am 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Maple Leafs win 43% of them, Blue Jackets 57%. The line is what actually happened: Maple Leafs by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Maple Leafs by 3+14.3%
Maple Leafs by 28.2%
Maple Leafs by 120.3%
Blue Jackets by 121.1%
Blue Jackets by 210.8%
Blue Jackets by 3+25.3%

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 +3.5 goals to the Maple Leafs: the final margin was Maple Leafs by 4, without the luck Maple Leafs by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Maple Leafs3562.60+3.40
Blue Jackets4823.22−1.22

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 14:19 Hooking on the Maple Leafs (Vinni Lettieri): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CBJ
P1 12:41 Slashing on the Blue Jackets (Dmitri Voronkov): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TOR
P1 6:55 High sticking double minor on the Blue Jackets (Kent Johnson): 4 minutes on the power play +8% TOR
P1 2:34 Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Dmitri Voronkov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TOR
P1 1:02 Interference on the Maple Leafs (Morgan Rielly): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P2 15:03 Slashing on the Maple Leafs (Marshall Rifai): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CBJ
P2 2:34 Instigator on the Maple Leafs (Zack MacEwen): 2 minutes on the power play 0% CBJ
P2 0:35 Delaying game puck over glass on the Maple Leafs (Brandon Duhaime): 2 minutes on the power play 0% CBJ
P3 8:28 Tripping on the Maple Leafs (Colton Sissons): 2 minutes on the power play 0% CBJ
P3 7:57 Slashing on the Blue Jackets (Matthew Knies): 2 minutes on the power play 0% TOR

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 70%. 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 Maple Leafs were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 17:22 Jake Christiansen scored on a snap shot from 35 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% CBJ –
2 P1 11:44 Kirill Marchenko scored on a deflected shot from 3 feetShooting · 21% chance +13% TOR –
3 P1 6:55 High sticking double minor on the Blue Jackets (Kent Johnson): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% TOR –
4 P1 2:34 Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Dmitri Voronkov): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% TOR –
5 P1 1:02 Interference on the Maple Leafs (Morgan Rielly): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% CBJ –
6 P2 17:34 William Nylander scored on a wrist shot from 34 feetShooting · 6% chance +19% TOR –
7 P2 16:48 Auston Matthews scored on a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% TOR –
8 P2 13:12 Easton Cowan scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 7% chance +9% TOR –

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

Maple Leafs 55% · Blue Jackets 45%

Final margin
Maple Leafs by 4
Luck in goals
3.5 for the Maple Leafs
Luck-adjusted margin
Maple Leafs by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Maple Leafs 43% · Blue Jackets 57% 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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