luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 8, 2025

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

Blue Jackets at Canucks, Nov 8, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Canucks beat the Blue Jackets 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Canucks win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 34 points of win probability to the Canucks.

The biggest swing (P3, 5:45 left): Brock Boeser scored on a wrist shot from 32 feet, worth 35 points of win probability to the Canucks.

Final

Columbus Blue Jackets 3
Vancouver Canucks 4

November 8, 2025 · Rogers Arena

Luck index +60 Canucks lucky · −60 Blue Jackets

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. Blue Jackets win 6, Canucks win 4.

  1. 1 CBJ 5 VAN 0
  2. 2 CBJ 4 VAN 1
  3. 3 CBJ 4 VAN 1
  4. 4 CBJ 4 VAN 2
  5. 5 CBJ 2 VAN 1
  6. 6 CBJ 4 VAN 3
  7. 7 CBJ 4 VAN 5
  8. 8 CBJ 4 VAN 5
  9. 9 CBJ 2 VAN 4
  10. 10 CBJ 6 VAN 9

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 3,999.9 replays ended

Blue Jackets win 60% of them, Canucks 40%. The line is what actually happened: Canucks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blue Jackets by 3+31.0%
Blue Jackets by 210.2%
Blue Jackets by 118.7%
Canucks by 119.7%
Canucks by 28.3%
Canucks by 3+12.1%

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 +1.0 goals to the Canucks: the final margin was Canucks by 1, without the luck even. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blue Jackets5334.08−1.08
Canucks4142.66+1.34

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 14:10 Hooking on the Canucks (Lukas Reichel): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P1 3:04 Holding on the Blue Jackets (Cole Sillinger): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P2 18:54 High sticking on the Canucks (Conor Garland): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P2 13:00 Boarding on the Blue Jackets (Mathieu Olivier): 5 minutes on the power play +12% VAN
P3 2:46 Interference on the Canucks (Aatu Räty): 2 minutes on the power play +6% CBJ
P3 0:47 Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Egor Chinakhov): 2 minutes on the power play +6% VAN
P3 0:11 Holding on the Canucks (Filip Hronek): 2 minutes on the power play +6% CBJ

When it happened

Canucks’ chance of winning

As low as 29% 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 Canucks were ahead in it, below while the Blue Jackets were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 14:32 Jake DeBrusk scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 12% chance +17% VAN –
2 P2 13:14 Kirill Marchenko scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 16% chance +17% CBJ –
3 P2 13:00 Boarding on the Blue Jackets (Mathieu Olivier): 5 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +12% VAN –
4 P2 6:58 Dmitri Voronkov scored on a poke shot from 7 feetShooting · 11% chance +20% CBJ –
5 P2 0:57 Drew O'Connor scored on a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 20% chance +20% VAN –
6 P3 13:43 Conor Garland scored on a poke shot from 11 feetShooting · 8% chance +26% VAN –
7 P3 10:13 Kirill Marchenko scored on a slap shot from 46 feetShooting · 5% chance +30% CBJ –
8 P3 5:45 Brock Boeser scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 6% chance +35% VAN –

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

Blue Jackets 46% · Canucks 54%

Final margin
Canucks by 1
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Canucks
Luck-adjusted margin
even
Replay with same day's form
Blue Jackets 60% · Canucks 40% 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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