luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · November 2, 2026

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

Avalanche at Blackhawks, Nov 2, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Avalanche beat the Blackhawks 5–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Avalanche win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 16 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

The biggest swing (P2, 6:22 left): Nazem Kadri scored on a tip from 11 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Avalanche.

Final

Colorado Avalanche 5
Chicago Blackhawks 2

November 2, 2026 · United Center

Our prediction before puck drop: Avalanche by 1.1

Luck index +42 Avalanche lucky · −42 Blackhawks

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. Avalanche win 6, Blackhawks win 4.

  1. 1 COL 5 CHI 1
  2. 2 COL 5 CHI 2
  3. 3 COL 6 CHI 3
  4. 4 COL 5 CHI 3
  5. 5 COL 3 CHI 2
  6. 6 COL 3 CHI 2
  7. 7 COL 1 CHI 2
  8. 8 COL 3 CHI 4
  9. 9 COL 1 CHI 3
  10. 10 COL 1 CHI 4

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Avalanche by 1.1, 68% to win. The Avalanche won by 3: the pick was right. The final margin was 1.9 goals from ours; 48% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Avalanche win67.8%
Blackhawks win32.2%
Middle 50%: Avalanche by 3 to Blackhawks by 150%
Middle 90%: Avalanche by 5 to Blackhawks by 390%
Middle 95%: Avalanche by 5 to Blackhawks by 495%
Exactly Avalanche by 122.0%
Exactly Avalanche by 317.4%
Exactly Blackhawks by 116.1%
Exactly Avalanche by 213.0%
Exactly Avalanche by 49.5%

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 Mon, Nov 2, 3:43 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

Avalanche win 58% of them, Blackhawks 42%. The line is what actually happened: Avalanche by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+25.2%
Avalanche by 211.3%
Avalanche by 121.1%
Blackhawks by 122.0%
Blackhawks by 28.3%
Blackhawks by 3+12.2%

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 +1.4 goals to the Avalanche: the final margin was Avalanche by 3, without the luck Avalanche by 1.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche4642.83+1.17
Blackhawks4122.27−0.27

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 17:54 Interference on the Blackhawks (Ethan Del Mastro): 2 minutes on the power play +3% COL
P1 9:19 High sticking on the Avalanche (Brock Nelson): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CHI
P1 6:38 A Avalanche goal came off the board on review (goal interference) +11% CHI
P1 3:16 Elbowing on the Blackhawks (Artyom Levshunov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL
P2 17:30 Cross checking on the Avalanche (Nazem Kadri): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CHI
P2 15:33 Tripping on the Blackhawks (Oliver Moore): 2 minutes on the power play +5% COL
P2 10:12 Holding on the Blackhawks (Sam Rinzel): 2 minutes on the power play +5% COL
P2 6:50 Holding on the Blackhawks (Connor Bedard): 2 minutes on the power play +5% COL
P2 3:01 Cross checking on the Avalanche (Noah Juulsen): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CHI
P3 11:58 Tripping on the Avalanche (Brock Nelson): 2 minutes on the power play +2% CHI

When it happened

Blackhawks’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 84%. 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 Blackhawks were ahead in it, below while the Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:03 Wyatt Kaiser scored on a wrist shot from 59 feetShooting · 1% chance +15% CHI –
2 P1 12:55 Roman Kantserov scored on a snap shot from 26 feetShooting · 12% chance +12% CHI –
3 P1 6:38 A Avalanche goal came off the board on review (goal interference)Overturned goals +11% CHI –
4 P1 4:37 Nazem Kadri scored on a poke shot from 6 feetShooting · 11% chance +12% COL –
5 P1 4:11 Jaden Schwartz scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 11% chance +16% COL –
6 P2 6:50 Holding on the Blackhawks (Connor Bedard): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% COL –
7 P2 6:22 Nazem Kadri scored on a tip from 11 feetShooting · 10% chance +21% COL –
8 P2 0:11 Jaden Schwartz scored on a tip from 13 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% 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

Avalanche 85% · Blackhawks 15%

Final margin
Avalanche by 3
Luck in goals
1.4 for the Avalanche
Luck-adjusted margin
Avalanche by 1.6
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 58% · Blackhawks 42% 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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