2026-27 regular season · October 20, 2026 · OT
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Wild at Oilers, Oct 20, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Oilers beat the Wild 4–3, but the replays lean toward the Wild: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Oilers.
The biggest swing (OT): the Oilers won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Oilers.
Final (OT)
 Minnesota Wild | 3 |
|---|---|
 Edmonton Oilers | 4 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +70 Oilers very lucky · −70 Wild
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. Wild win 7, Oilers win 3.
- 1 MIN 8 EDM 1
- 2 MIN 7 EDM 2
- 3 MIN 7 EDM 3
- 4 MIN 6 EDM 3
- 5 MIN 5 EDM 2
- 6 MIN 6 EDM 4
- 7 MIN 7 EDM 6
- 8 MIN 5 EDM 6
- 9 MIN 4 EDM 6
- 10 MIN 2 EDM 5
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Oilers by 0.2, 54% to win. The Oilers won by 1: the pick was right. The final margin was 0.8 goals from ours; 78% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Wild win | 45.8% |
| Oilers win | 54.2% |
| Middle 50%: Wild by 2 to Oilers by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Wild by 4 to Oilers by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Wild by 4 to Oilers by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Oilers by 1 | 21.6% |
| Exactly Wild by 1 | 19.5% |
| Exactly Oilers by 3 | 13.0% |
| Exactly Oilers by 2 | 10.3% |
| Exactly Wild by 3 | 10.2% |
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 Tue, Oct 20, 8:52 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 replays ended
Wild win 70% of them, Oilers 30%. The line is what actually happened: Oilers by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Wild by 3+ | 47.9% |
| Wild by 2 | 9.4% |
| Wild by 1 | 13.0% |
| Oilers by 1 | 14.2% |
| Oilers by 2 | 6.3% |
| Oilers by 3+ | 9.1% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Wild | 45 | 3 | 5.73 | −2.73 |
 Oilers | 42 | 3 | 3.40 | −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 1:23 | Interference on the Wild (David Spacek): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% EDM |
| P1 0:27 | Hooking on the Wild (Matt Boldy): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% EDM |
| P2 16:02 | Tripping on the Wild (Ryan Hartman): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% EDM |
| P2 11:34 | High sticking on the Oilers (Mathieu Joseph): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% MIN |
| P2 10:18 | Tripping on the Oilers (Connor Murphy): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% MIN |
| P2 4:21 | Cross checking on the Wild (Jonas Brodin): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% EDM |
| P3 19:09 | Interference on the Oilers (Mattias Ekholm): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% MIN |
| OT 3:01 | Too many men on the ice on the Wild (MIN): 2 minutes on the power play | +12% EDM |
When it happened
Oilers’ chance of winning
As low as 34% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 16:28 | Joel Eriksson Ek scored on a snap shot from 5 feetShooting · 18% chance | +13% MIN | – |
| 2 | P1 3:10 | Joel Eriksson Ek’s snap shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 48% chanceJoel Eriksson Ek’s snap shot from 2 feet was savedShooting · 50% chance | +15% EDM | – |
| 3 | P1 0:03 | Leon Draisaitl scored on a snap shot from 32 feetShooting · 10% chance | +17% EDM | – |
| 4 | P2 18:57 | Leon Draisaitl scored on a snap shot from 14 feetShooting · 22% chance | +15% EDM | – |
| 5 | P2 13:59 | Mathieu Joseph scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 16% chance | +12% EDM | – |
| 6 | P3 6:53 | Ryan Hartman scored on a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 18% chance | +29% MIN | – |
| 7 | OT | The Oilers won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip | +49% EDM | – |
| 8 | OT 3:01 | Too many men on the ice on the Wild (MIN): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +12% EDM | – |
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
Wild 80% · Oilers 20%
- Final margin
- Oilers by 1
- Luck in goals
- 2.7 for the Oilers
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Wild by 1.7
- Replay with same day's form
- Wild 70% · Oilers 30% 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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