2026-27 regular season · October 23, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Lightning at Avalanche, Oct 23, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Avalanche beat the Lightning 6–3, but the replays lean toward the Lightning: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 26 points of win probability to the Avalanche.
The biggest swing (P1, 18:52 left): Devon Toews scored on a wrist shot from 17 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Avalanche.
Final
 Tampa Bay Lightning | 3 |
|---|---|
 Colorado Avalanche | 6 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +64 Avalanche very lucky · −64 Lightning
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. Lightning win 6, Avalanche win 4.
- 1 TBL 6 COL 1
- 2 TBL 3 COL 0
- 3 TBL 4 COL 1
- 4 TBL 3 COL 1
- 5 TBL 4 COL 3
- 6 TBL 2 COL 1
- 7 TBL 3 COL 4
- 8 TBL 4 COL 5
- 9 TBL 3 COL 5
- 10 TBL 0 COL 3
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Avalanche by 0.6, 60% to win. The Avalanche 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 |
|---|---|
| Lightning win | 39.6% |
| Avalanche win | 60.4% |
| Middle 50%: Lightning by 1 to Avalanche by 3 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Lightning by 4 to Avalanche by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Lightning by 4 to Avalanche by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Avalanche by 1 | 22.3% |
| Exactly Lightning by 1 | 18.0% |
| Exactly Avalanche by 3 | 15.1% |
| Exactly Avalanche by 2 | 11.3% |
| Exactly Lightning by 3 | 8.4% |
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 23, 2:41 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 3,999.8 replays ended
Lightning win 64% of them, Avalanche 36%. The line is what actually happened: Avalanche by 3.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Lightning by 3+ | 32.9% |
| Lightning by 2 | 12.3% |
| Lightning by 1 | 19.1% |
| Avalanche by 1 | 20.1% |
| Avalanche by 2 | 6.5% |
| Avalanche by 3+ | 9.2% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Lightning | 53 | 3 | 3.61 | −0.61 |
 Avalanche | 34 | 5 | 1.99 | +3.01 |
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 14:51 | Tripping on the Lightning (Brandon Hagel): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% COL |
| P1 8:33 | Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Lightning (Jake Guentzel): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% COL |
| P2 16:56 | Interference goalkeeper on the Avalanche (Logan O'Connor): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% TBL |
| P2 12:00 | Tripping on the Avalanche (Taylor Makar): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% TBL |
| P2 9:11 | Tripping on the Avalanche (Artturi Lehkonen): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% TBL |
| P2 2:43 | Too many men on the ice on the Avalanche (COL): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% TBL |
| P2 0:43 | Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Avalanche (COL): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% TBL |
| P3 15:01 | Cross checking on the Lightning (Charle-Edouard D'Astous): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% COL |
| P3 9:02 | Holding on the Avalanche (Devon Toews): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% TBL |
When it happened
Avalanche’ chance of winning
Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 18:52 | Devon Toews scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 4% chance | +15% COL | – |
| 2 | P1 14:08 | Nazem Kadri scored on a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 14% chance | +11% COL | – |
| 3 | P2 19:36 | Fedor Svechkov scored on a bat shot from 17 feetShooting · 5% chance | +8% COL | – |
| 4 | P2 11:47 | Jake Guentzel scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 16% chance | +7% TBL | – |
| 5 | P2 6:03 | Artturi Lehkonen scored on a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 10% chance | +6% COL | – |
| 6 | P2 0:43 | Jake Guentzel scored on a snap shot from 2 feetShooting · 50% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Avalanche (COL): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +6% TBL | – |
| 7 | P2 0:20 | Jake Guentzel’s slap shot from 14 feet was savedShooting · 27% chance | +4% COL | – |
| 8 | P3 15:42 | Nathan MacKinnon scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 8% chance | +5% 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
Lightning 47% · Avalanche 53%
- Final margin
- Avalanche by 3
- Luck in goals
- 3.0 for the Avalanche
- Luck-adjusted margin
- even
- Replay with same day's form
- Lightning 64% · Avalanche 36% 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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