luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 15, 2025

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

Bruins at Canadiens, Nov 15, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Bruins beat the Canadiens 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Bruins win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 46 points of win probability to the Bruins.

The biggest swing (P2, 18:00 left): Mason Lohrei scored on a snap shot from 55 feet, worth 19 points of win probability to the Bruins.

Final

Boston Bruins 3
Montreal Canadiens 2

November 15, 2025 · Centre Bell

Luck index +47 Bruins lucky · −47 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. Bruins win 5, Canadiens win 5.

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

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

Bruins win 53% of them, Canadiens 47%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bruins by 3+25.9%
Bruins by 29.1%
Bruins by 118.2%
Canadiens by 118.1%
Canadiens by 28.7%
Canadiens by 3+20.1%

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 +0.4 goals to the Canadiens: the final margin was Bruins by 1, without the luck Bruins by 1.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Bruins3833.70−0.70
Canadiens5223.82−1.82

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 18:55 Hooking on the Canadiens (Cole Caufield): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 14:09 Holding the stick on the Bruins (Hampus Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P1 9:10 Slashing on the Canadiens (Noah Dobson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 3:45 Roughing on the Bruins (Mark Kastelic): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P1 3:12 Tripping on the Bruins (Nikita Zadorov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 12:22 Holding on the Bruins (Fraser Minten): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 12:11 Slashing on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 10:02 Interference on the Bruins (Hampus Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 3:47 Hooking on the Canadiens (Juraj Slafkovský): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BOS
P3 19:16 Hooking on the Canadiens (Kirby Dach): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BOS
P3 15:37 Delaying game puck over glass on the Bruins (Nikita Zadorov): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MTL
P3 12:10 High sticking on the Canadiens (Jayden Struble): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BOS

When it happened

Canadiens’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Bruins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:22 Marat Khusnutdinov scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% BOS –
2 P1 7:48 Jake Evans scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 11% chance +16% MTL –
3 P2 18:00 Mason Lohrei scored on a snap shot from 55 feetShooting · 1% chance +19% BOS –
4 P2 3:09 Viktor Arvidsson scored on a snap shot from 13 feetShooting · 20% chance +13% BOS –
5 P2 1:16 Cole Caufield scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 12% chance +14% MTL –
6 P3 14:51 Juraj Slafkovský hit the right post with a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 20% chance +6% BOS –
7 P3 12:10 High sticking on the Canadiens (Jayden Struble): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% BOS –
8 P3 0:19 Cole Caufield’s snap shot from 26 feet was savedShooting · 14% chance +7% BOS –

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

Bruins 77% · Canadiens 23%

Final margin
Bruins by 1
Luck in goals
0.4 for the Canadiens
Luck-adjusted margin
Bruins by 1.4
Replay with same day's form
Bruins 53% · Canadiens 47% 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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