2026-27 regular season · October 24, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Kings at Devils, Oct 24, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Devils beat the Kings 3–1, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 8 of 10.
The biggest swing (P3, 11:52 left): Brett Pesce scored on a wrist shot from 33 feet, worth 28 points of win probability to the Devils.
Final
 Los Angeles Kings | 1 |
|---|---|
 New Jersey Devils | 3 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +21 Devils about even · −21 Kings
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. Kings win 2, Devils win 8.
- 1 LAK 3 NJD 1
- 2 LAK 1 NJD 0
- 3 LAK 1 NJD 2
- 4 LAK 0 NJD 1
- 5 LAK 2 NJD 4
- 6 LAK 2 NJD 4
- 7 LAK 1 NJD 4
- 8 LAK 0 NJD 3
- 9 LAK 0 NJD 4
- 10 LAK 0 NJD 5
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Devils by 0.3, 56% to win. The Devils won by 2: the pick was right. The final margin was 1.7 goals from ours; 49% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Kings win | 44.3% |
| Devils win | 55.7% |
| Middle 50%: Kings by 2 to Devils by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Kings by 4 to Devils by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Kings by 4 to Devils by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Devils by 1 | 21.8% |
| Exactly Kings by 1 | 19.2% |
| Exactly Devils by 3 | 13.5% |
| Exactly Devils by 2 | 10.6% |
| Exactly Kings by 3 | 9.8% |
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 24, 12:13 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
Kings win 21% of them, Devils 79%. The line is what actually happened: Devils by 2.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Kings by 3+ | 1.6% |
| Kings by 2 | 3.3% |
| Kings by 1 | 16.1% |
| Devils by 1 | 21.5% |
| Devils by 2 | 13.9% |
| Devils by 3+ | 43.7% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Kings | 22 | 1 | 1.20 | −0.20 |
 Devils | 44 | 2 | 2.94 | −0.94 |
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 16:51 | Hooking on the Devils (Brett Pesce): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% LAK |
| P1 4:02 | Hooking on the Kings (Brian Dumoulin): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% NJD |
| P2 6:35 | Tripping on the Kings (Scott Laughton): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% NJD |
| P3 7:01 | Tripping on the Devils (Timo Meier): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% LAK |
When it happened
Devils’ chance of winning
As low as 28% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 16:51 | Hooking on the Devils (Brett Pesce): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% LAK | – |
| 2 | P1 4:02 | Hooking on the Kings (Brian Dumoulin): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% NJD | – |
| 3 | P2 6:35 | Tripping on the Kings (Scott Laughton): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% NJD | – |
| 4 | P2 5:59 | Nico Hischier’s snap shot from 18 feet was savedShooting · 23% chance | +5% LAK | – |
| 5 | P2 4:03 | Scott Laughton scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 10% chance | +21% LAK | – |
| 6 | P2 1:17 | Anthony Mantha scored on a wrist shot from 21 feetShooting · 7% chance | +23% NJD | – |
| 7 | P3 11:52 | Brett Pesce scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 6% chance | +28% NJD | – |
| 8 | P3 7:01 | Tripping on the Devils (Timo Meier): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% LAK | – |
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
Kings 1% · Devils 99%
- Final margin
- Devils by 2
- Luck in goals
- 1.4 for the Kings
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Devils by 3.4
- Replay with same day's form
- Kings 21% · Devils 79% 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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