2026-27 regular season · October 31, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Flames at Avalanche, Oct 31, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Avalanche beat the Flames 5–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.
The biggest swing (P1, 5:47 left): Nathan MacKinnon scored on a wrist shot from 43 feet, worth 17 points of win probability to the Avalanche.
Final
 Calgary Flames | 2 |
|---|---|
 Colorado Avalanche | 5 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +33 Avalanche lucky · −33 Flames
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. Flames win 3, Avalanche win 7.
- 1 CGY 3 COL 0
- 2 CGY 4 COL 3
- 3 CGY 3 COL 2
- 4 CGY 6 COL 7
- 5 CGY 4 COL 5
- 6 CGY 0 COL 2
- 7 CGY 0 COL 3
- 8 CGY 3 COL 6
- 9 CGY 2 COL 6
- 10 CGY 1 COL 6
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Avalanche by 1.3, 71% to win. The Avalanche won by 3: the pick was right. The final margin was 1.7 goals from ours; 46% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Flames win | 28.8% |
| Avalanche win | 71.2% |
| Middle 50%: Flames by 1 to Avalanche by 3 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Flames by 3 to Avalanche by 5 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Flames by 4 to Avalanche by 6 | 95% |
| Exactly Avalanche by 1 | 22.3% |
| Exactly Avalanche by 3 | 18.8% |
| Exactly Flames by 1 | 14.5% |
| Exactly Avalanche by 2 | 12.6% |
| Exactly Avalanche by 4 | 10.2% |
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 Sat, Oct 31, 7:40 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
Flames win 33% of them, Avalanche 67%. The line is what actually happened: Avalanche by 3.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Flames by 3+ | 8.9% |
| Flames by 2 | 6.5% |
| Flames by 1 | 18.1% |
| Avalanche by 1 | 17.8% |
| Avalanche by 2 | 12.3% |
| Avalanche by 3+ | 36.5% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Flames | 38 | 2 | 2.35 | −0.35 |
 Avalanche | 45 | 5 | 3.57 | +1.43 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| P2 19:05 | High sticking on the Flames (Ryan Strome): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% COL |
| P3 6:24 | High sticking double minor on the Flames (Yan Kuznetsov): 4 minutes on the power play | +1% COL |
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 5:47 | Nathan MacKinnon scored on a wrist shot from 43 feetShooting · 3% chance | +17% COL | – |
| 2 | P2 19:51 | Joel Farabee’s snap shot from 9 feet was savedShooting · 21% chance | +4% COL | – |
| 3 | P2 19:05 | High sticking on the Flames (Ryan Strome): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% COL | – |
| 4 | P2 17:23 | Martin Necas scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 13% chance | +12% COL | – |
| 5 | P2 14:12 | Artturi Lehkonen scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 16% chance | +7% COL | – |
| 6 | P2 10:53 | Brock Nelson scored on a tip from 7 feetShooting · 7% chance | +3% COL | – |
| 7 | P3 18:01 | Martin Pospisil scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 16% chance | +5% CGY | – |
| 8 | P3 15:51 | Artturi Lehkonen scored on a tip from 13 feetShooting · 6% 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
Flames 17% · Avalanche 83%
- Final margin
- Avalanche by 3
- Luck in goals
- 1.3 for the Avalanche
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Avalanche by 1.7
- Replay with same day's form
- Flames 33% · Avalanche 67% 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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