2026-27 regular season · October 28, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Devils at Avalanche, Oct 28, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Avalanche beat the Devils 5–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.
The biggest swing (P3, 17:15 left): Nazem Kadri scored on a snap shot from 7 feet, worth 24 points of win probability to the Avalanche.
Final
 New Jersey Devils | 2 |
|---|---|
 Colorado Avalanche | 5 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +28 Avalanche lucky · −28 Devils
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. Devils win 3, Avalanche win 7.
- 1 NJD 4 COL 1
- 2 NJD 5 COL 4
- 3 NJD 5 COL 4
- 4 NJD 4 COL 5
- 5 NJD 4 COL 5
- 6 NJD 1 COL 3
- 7 NJD 1 COL 4
- 8 NJD 0 COL 3
- 9 NJD 3 COL 7
- 10 NJD 3 COL 9
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 |
|---|---|
| Devils win | 39.9% |
| Avalanche win | 60.1% |
| Middle 50%: Devils by 1 to Avalanche by 3 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Devils by 4 to Avalanche by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Devils by 4 to Avalanche by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Avalanche by 1 | 22.2% |
| Exactly Devils by 1 | 18.1% |
| Exactly Avalanche by 3 | 15.0% |
| Exactly Avalanche by 2 | 11.2% |
| Exactly Devils by 3 | 8.5% |
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 Wed, Oct 28, 6:49 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 4,000.2 replays ended
Devils win 28% of them, Avalanche 72%. The line is what actually happened: Avalanche by 3.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Devils by 3+ | 6.8% |
| Devils by 2 | 4.9% |
| Devils by 1 | 16.4% |
| Avalanche by 1 | 17.4% |
| Avalanche by 2 | 10.4% |
| Avalanche by 3+ | 44.1% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Devils | 32 | 2 | 2.40 | −0.40 |
 Avalanche | 64 | 5 | 4.51 | +0.49 |
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 9:00 | Hooking on the Devils (Brett Pesce): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% COL |
| P2 10:59 | Hooking on the Devils (Nico Hischier): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% COL |
| P2 1:59 | Cross checking on the Avalanche (Logan O'Connor): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% NJD |
| P2 0:32 | Tripping on the Avalanche (Brent Burns): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% NJD |
| P3 6:53 | Holding on the Avalanche (Fedor Svechkov): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% NJD |
When it happened
Avalanche’ chance of winning
As low as 31% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 7:39 | Connor Brown scored on a wrist shot from 29 feetShooting · 4% chance | +17% NJD | – |
| 2 | P2 15:11 | Brock Nelson’s snap shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 28% chance | +6% NJD | – |
| 3 | P2 9:02 | Gabriel Landeskog scored on a snap shot from 2 feetShooting · 55% chance | +10% COL | – |
| 4 | P2 1:59 | Cross checking on the Avalanche (Logan O'Connor): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +6% NJD | – |
| 5 | P2 0:32 | Tripping on the Avalanche (Brent Burns): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +6% NJD | – |
| 6 | P2 0:15 | Anthony Mantha missed the net with a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 18% chance | +5% COL | – |
| 7 | P3 17:15 | Nazem Kadri scored on a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 9% chance | +24% COL | – |
| 8 | P3 16:13 | Parker Kelly scored on a wrist shot from 34 feetShooting · 5% chance | +14% 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
Devils 9% · Avalanche 91%
- Final margin
- Avalanche by 3
- Luck in goals
- 0.7 for the Avalanche
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Avalanche by 2.3
- Replay with same day's form
- Devils 28% · Avalanche 72% 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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