luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 26, 2026

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

Maple Leafs at Flames, Oct 26, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Flames beat the Maple Leafs 5–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Flames win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 19 points of win probability to the Flames.

The biggest swing (P1, 9:55 left): Matvei Gridin scored on a wrist shot from 25 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Flames.

Final

Toronto Maple Leafs 2
Calgary Flames 5

October 26, 2026 · Scotiabank Saddledome

Our prediction before puck drop: even

Luck index +44 Flames lucky · −44 Maple Leafs

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, Flames win 6.

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

Our prediction before puck drop

We had it even, a coin flip. The Flames won by 3. The final margin was 3.0 goals from ours; 16% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Maple Leafs win50.6%
Flames win49.4%
Middle 50%: Maple Leafs by 2 to Flames by 250%
Middle 90%: Maple Leafs by 4 to Flames by 490%
Middle 95%: Maple Leafs by 5 to Flames by 595%
Exactly Flames by 120.7%
Exactly Maple Leafs by 120.5%
Exactly Maple Leafs by 311.7%
Exactly Flames by 311.5%
Exactly Maple Leafs by 210.3%

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 Mon, Oct 26, 1:05 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

Maple Leafs win 44% of them, Flames 56%. The line is what actually happened: Flames by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Maple Leafs by 3+15.7%
Maple Leafs by 29.3%
Maple Leafs by 119.5%
Flames by 120.7%
Flames by 210.2%
Flames by 3+24.7%

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.

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 +1.2 goals to the Flames: the final margin was Flames by 3, without the luck Flames by 1.8. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Maple Leafs4022.82−0.82
Flames4933.26−0.26

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 15:04 Tripping on the Maple Leafs (Dakota Mermis): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P1 7:51 Delaying game illegal play by goalie on the Flames (Devin Cooley): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TOR
P1 0:18 Roughing on the Maple Leafs (Easton Cowan): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CGY
P2 14:15 Tripping on the Maple Leafs (Sergei Bobrovsky): 2 minutes on the power play +1% CGY
P2 4:20 Slashing on the Flames (Mikael Backlund): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TOR
P3 16:45 High sticking on the Maple Leafs (William Nylander): 2 minutes on the power play +2% CGY
P3 7:39 High sticking on the Maple Leafs (Auston Matthews): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CGY

When it happened

Flames’ 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 Flames were ahead in it, below while the Maple Leafs were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:04 Tripping on the Maple Leafs (Dakota Mermis): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% CGY –
2 P1 9:55 Matvei Gridin scored on a wrist shot from 25 feetShooting · 4% chance +16% CGY –
3 P1 8:10 Mikael Backlund scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 6% chance +13% CGY –
4 P2 19:35 Matvei Gridin scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 9% chance +8% CGY –
5 P2 7:06 Easton Cowan scored on a tip from 13 feetShooting · 8% chance +7% TOR –
6 P3 17:19 Zack MacEwen’s between-the-legs shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 28% chance +4% CGY –
7 P3 13:54 William Nylander scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 18% chance +12% TOR –
8 P3 7:39 High sticking on the Maple Leafs (Auston Matthews): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% CGY –

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 16% · Flames 84%

Final margin
Flames by 3
Luck in goals
1.2 for the Flames
Luck-adjusted margin
Flames by 1.8
Replay with same day's form
Maple Leafs 44% · Flames 56% 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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