luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · November 7, 2026 · OT

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

Devils at Islanders, Nov 7, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Devils beat the Islanders 5–4, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Devils win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Devils.

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

Final (OT)

New Jersey Devils 5
New York Islanders 4

November 7, 2026 · UBS Arena

Our prediction before puck drop: Devils by 0.2

Luck index +43 Devils lucky · −43 Islanders

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 6, Islanders win 4.

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

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Devils by 0.2, 53% to win. The Devils won by 1: the pick was right. The final margin was 0.8 goals from ours; 79% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Devils win53.3%
Islanders win46.7%
Middle 50%: Devils by 2 to Islanders by 250%
Middle 90%: Devils by 4 to Islanders by 490%
Middle 95%: Devils by 5 to Islanders by 495%
Exactly Devils by 120.9%
Exactly Islanders by 120.2%
Exactly Devils by 312.6%
Exactly Devils by 210.8%
Exactly Islanders by 310.7%

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, Nov 7, 6:54 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 4,000.1 replays ended

Devils win 57% of them, Islanders 43%. The line is what actually happened: Devils by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Devils by 3+29.5%
Devils by 29.9%
Devils by 117.8%
Islanders by 119.1%
Islanders by 27.6%
Islanders by 3+16.1%

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 +0.1 goals to the Devils: the final margin was Devils by 1, without the luck Devils by 0.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Devils6144.38−0.38
Islanders3343.20+0.80

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
P2 11:31 Interference on the Islanders (Ondrej Palat): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NJD
P2 0:33 Roughing on the Islanders (Matthew Schaefer): 2 minutes on the power play +2% NJD
P3 8:52 Holding on the Islanders (Simon Holmstrom): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NJD
P3 7:25 High sticking on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NJD

When it happened

Islanders’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 94%. 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 Islanders were ahead in it, below while the Devils were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 4:54 Anthony Duclair scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 14% chance +15% NYI –
2 P1 4:37 Evan Rodrigues scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 10% chance +16% NJD –
3 P1 2:46 Matthew Schaefer scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 17% chance +15% NYI –
4 P2 15:18 Declan Chisholm scored on a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 5% chance +19% NJD –
5 P2 14:52 Simon Holmstrom scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 12% chance +17% NYI –
6 P2 8:06 Victor Eklund scored on a poke shot from 5 feetShooting · 12% chance +13% NYI –
7 P3 6:18 Dougie Hamilton scored on a wrist shot from 25 feetShooting · 12% chance +32% NJD –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Devils won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% NJD –

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 67% · Islanders 33%

Final margin
Devils by 1
Luck in goals
0.1 for the Devils
Luck-adjusted margin
Devils by 0.9
Replay with same day's form
Devils 57% · Islanders 43% 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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