luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 18, 2025

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

Rangers at Canadiens, Oct 18, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Rangers beat the Canadiens 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Rangers win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 23 points of win probability to the Rangers.

The game turned on a luck play (P3, 19:26 left): J.T. Miller scored on a deflected shot from 8 feet, worth 23 points of win probability to the Rangers. The biggest single swing (P3, 15:49 left): Matthew Robertson scored on a slap shot from 61 feet.

Final

New York Rangers 4
Montreal Canadiens 3

October 18, 2025 · Centre Bell

Luck index +46 Rangers lucky · −46 Canadiens

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. Rangers win 5, Canadiens win 5.

  1. 1 NYR 4 MTL 0
  2. 2 NYR 3 MTL 0
  3. 3 NYR 4 MTL 2
  4. 4 NYR 5 MTL 4
  5. 5 NYR 3 MTL 2
  6. 6 NYR 1 MTL 2
  7. 7 NYR 3 MTL 4
  8. 8 NYR 2 MTL 3
  9. 9 NYR 0 MTL 2
  10. 10 NYR 0 MTL 3

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

Rangers win 54% of them, Canadiens 46%. The line is what actually happened: Rangers by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Rangers by 3+20.6%
Rangers by 210.7%
Rangers by 122.6%
Canadiens by 123.3%
Canadiens by 28.9%
Canadiens by 3+13.9%

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 Canadiens: the final margin was Rangers by 1, without the luck Rangers by 1.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Rangers3842.55+1.45
Canadiens3732.34+0.66

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 17:49 Hooking on the Rangers (Urho Vaakanainen): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MTL
P1 13:10 Slashing on the Rangers (Conor Sheary): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MTL
P1 9:36 Holding on the Canadiens (Josh Anderson): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYR
P2 1:28 Holding on the Canadiens (Alexandre Carrier): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYR

When it happened

Canadiens’ 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 Canadiens were ahead in it, below while the Rangers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:27 Juraj Slafkovský scored on a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 13% chance +13% MTL –
2 P1 16:18 Nick Suzuki scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 10% chance +12% MTL –
3 P1 8:04 Mika Zibanejad scored on a slap shot from 34 feetShooting · 8% chance +12% NYR –
4 P3 19:26 The game turned hereJ.T. Miller scored on a deflected shot from 8 feetShooting · 10% chance +23% NYR –
5 P3 15:49 Matthew Robertson scored on a slap shot from 61 feetShooting · 2% chance +28% NYR –
6 P3 14:09 Artemi Panarin scored on a snap shot from 32 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% NYR –
7 P3 11:34 Noah Dobson scored on a snap shot from 58 feetShooting · 1% chance +15% MTL –
8 P3 0:55 Alex Newhook’s snap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 21% chance +10% NYR –

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

Rangers 86% · Canadiens 14%

Final margin
Rangers by 1
Luck in goals
0.7 for the Canadiens
Luck-adjusted margin
Rangers by 1.7
Replay with same day's form
Rangers 54% · Canadiens 46% 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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