luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 28, 2025

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

Canucks at Sharks, Nov 28, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Sharks beat the Canucks 3–2, but the replays lean toward the Canucks: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 38 points of win probability to the Sharks.

The biggest swing (P2, 5:57 left): William Eklund scored on a slap shot from 19 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Sharks.

Final

Vancouver Canucks 2
San Jose Sharks 3

November 28, 2025 · SAP Center at San Jose

Luck index +63 Sharks very lucky · −63 Canucks

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. Canucks win 6, Sharks win 4.

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

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

Canucks win 63% of them, Sharks 37%. The line is what actually happened: Sharks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canucks by 3+33.2%
Canucks by 210.8%
Canucks by 118.8%
Sharks by 119.0%
Sharks by 27.3%
Sharks by 3+10.9%

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 +1.7 goals to the Sharks: the final margin was Sharks by 1, without the luck Canucks by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canucks4723.74−1.74
Sharks3432.42+0.58

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 12:00 Interference on the Canucks (Quinn Hughes): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P1 0:07 High sticking on the Canucks (Arshdeep Bains): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 11:20 High sticking on the Sharks (Timothy Liljegren): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P2 7:32 Abuse of officials on the Canucks (Quinn Hughes): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P2 6:49 Tripping on the Canucks (Marcus Pettersson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P2 4:18 Cross checking on the Sharks (Timothy Liljegren): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P2 0:49 Holding the stick on the Sharks (William Eklund): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN
P3 18:32 Interference on the Sharks (Vincent Iorio): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN
P3 13:42 Holding on the Canucks (Elias Pettersson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P3 12:28 Interference on the Sharks (Will Smith): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN
P3 4:23 Tripping on the Sharks (Dmitry Orlov): 2 minutes on the power play +6% VAN
P3 2:43 Slashing on the Canucks (Evander Kane): 2 minutes on the power play +6% SJS
P3 1:24 Cross checking on the Sharks (Macklin Celebrini): 4 minutes on the power play +11% VAN
P3 0:02 Cross checking on the Sharks (Barclay Goodrow): 2 minutes on the power play +6% VAN

When it happened

Sharks’ chance of winning

As low as 30% 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 Sharks were ahead in it, below while the Canucks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:32 Brock Boeser scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 5% chance +16% VAN –
2 P1 10:35 Will Smith scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% SJS –
3 P2 16:56 Elias Pettersson scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 6% chance +19% VAN –
4 P2 5:57 William Eklund scored on a slap shot from 19 feetShooting · 10% chance +21% SJS –
5 P2 4:43 Adam Gaudette scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 14% chance +20% SJS –
6 P3 11:08 Jake DeBrusk’s wrist shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 25% chance +8% SJS –
7 P3 4:11 Elias Pettersson hit the right post with a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 19% chance +8% SJS –
8 P3 1:24 Cross checking on the Sharks (Macklin Celebrini): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +11% 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

Canucks 72% · Sharks 28%

Final margin
Sharks by 1
Luck in goals
1.7 for the Sharks
Luck-adjusted margin
Canucks by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Canucks 63% · Sharks 37% 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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