luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 29, 2026 · OT

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

Islanders at Wild, Oct 29, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Wild 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Islanders win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Islanders.

The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Islanders won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Islanders.

Final (OT)

New York Islanders 4
Minnesota Wild 3

October 29, 2026 · Grand Casino Arena

Our prediction before puck drop: Wild by 0.7

Luck index +45 Islanders lucky · −45 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. Islanders win 6, Wild win 4.

  1. 1 NYI 5 MIN 1
  2. 2 NYI 3 MIN 0
  3. 3 NYI 4 MIN 2
  4. 4 NYI 3 MIN 2
  5. 5 NYI 2 MIN 1
  6. 6 NYI 6 MIN 5
  7. 7 NYI 4 MIN 5
  8. 8 NYI 1 MIN 2
  9. 9 NYI 1 MIN 3
  10. 10 NYI 1 MIN 4

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Wild by 0.7, 61% to win. The Islanders won by 1, a result we gave 39%. 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
OutcomeChance
Islanders win39.0%
Wild win61.0%
Middle 50%: Islanders by 1 to Wild by 350%
Middle 90%: Islanders by 3 to Wild by 490%
Middle 95%: Islanders by 4 to Wild by 595%
Exactly Wild by 122.3%
Exactly Islanders by 117.8%
Exactly Wild by 315.3%
Exactly Wild by 211.4%
Exactly Islanders by 38.2%

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 Thu, Oct 29, 1:10 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 3,999.9 replays ended

Islanders win 55% of them, Wild 45%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Islanders by 3+19.9%
Islanders by 211.4%
Islanders by 123.8%
Wild by 123.3%
Wild by 29.4%
Wild by 3+12.1%

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.

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 +0.7 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 1, without the luck Islanders by 0.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Islanders4132.44+0.56
Wild4032.06+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.

WhenCallWin probability for
P1 12:46 Hooking on the Islanders (Kyle Palmieri): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MIN
P2 19:03 Tripping on the Wild (Olli Maatta): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 13:20 Tripping on the Islanders (Jean-Gabriel Pageau): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P3 15:43 Tripping on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power play +6% MIN
P3 9:17 Tripping on the Wild (Joel Eriksson Ek): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYI

When it happened

Wild’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 71%. 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 Wild were ahead in it, below while the Islanders were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:33 Joel Eriksson Ek scored on a wrist shot from 41 feetShooting · 3% chance +15% MIN –
2 P1 3:24 Matthew Schaefer scored on a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 10% chance +16% NYI –
3 P2 18:19 Bo Horvat scored on a tip from 13 feetShooting · 9% chance +18% NYI –
4 P2 2:39 Quinn Hughes scored on a backhand shot from 24 feetShooting · 2% chance +24% MIN –
5 P3 15:43 Tripping on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% MIN –
6 P3 12:46 Adam Pelech scored on a wrist shot from 44 feetShooting · 2% chance +30% NYI –
7 P3 3:53 Matt Boldy scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 6% chance +38% MIN –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Islanders won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% NYI –

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

Islanders 56% · Wild 44%

Final margin
Islanders by 1
Luck in goals
0.7 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Islanders by 0.3
Replay with same day's form
Islanders 55% · Wild 45% 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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