luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 6, 2025 · OT

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

Canadiens at Devils, Nov 6, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Devils beat the Canadiens 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Devils win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Devils.

The biggest swing (OT): the Devils won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Devils.

Final (OT)

Montreal Canadiens 3
New Jersey Devils 4

November 6, 2025 · Prudential Center

Luck index +48 Devils lucky · −48 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. Canadiens win 5, Devils win 5.

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

Canadiens win 48% of them, Devils 52%. The line is what actually happened: Devils by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canadiens by 3+12.9%
Canadiens by 29.9%
Canadiens by 124.9%
Devils by 126.5%
Devils by 211.9%
Devils 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 +0.9 goals to the Devils: the final margin was Devils by 1, without the luck Devils by 0.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canadiens2831.98+1.02
Devils3732.06+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 10:49 Interference goalkeeper on the Canadiens (Kirby Dach): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NJD
P1 3:54 Tripping on the Devils (Timo Meier): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P1 3:34 Tripping on the Canadiens (Ivan Demidov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NJD
P2 10:16 Tripping on the Canadiens (Oliver Kapanen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NJD
P2 2:30 Hooking on the Devils (Simon Nemec): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P3 17:27 Hooking on the Canadiens (Jayden Struble): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NJD
P3 13:54 High sticking on the Canadiens (Jayden Struble): 2 minutes on the power play +7% NJD

When it happened

Devils’ chance of winning

As low as 7% and as high as 100%. 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 Devils were ahead in it, below while the Canadiens were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:07 Cody Glass scored on a snap shot from 35 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% NJD –
2 P1 17:01 Kirby Dach scored on a tip from 11 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% MTL –
3 P2 11:55 Ondrej Palat scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 14% chance +18% NJD –
4 P3 19:01 Jake Evans scored on a wrist shot from 27 feetShooting · 3% chance +25% MTL –
5 P3 13:54 High sticking on the Canadiens (Jayden Struble): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% NJD –
6 P3 9:27 Oliver Kapanen scored on a backhand shot from 11 feetShooting · 10% chance +30% MTL –
7 P3 1:07 Timo Meier scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 14% chance +39% NJD –
8 OT The Devils won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% 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

Canadiens 48% · Devils 52%

Final margin
Devils by 1
Luck in goals
0.9 for the Devils
Luck-adjusted margin
Devils by 0.1
Replay with same day's form
Canadiens 48% · Devils 52% 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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