luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 7, 2025

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

Blues at Canadiens, Dec 7, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Blues beat the Canadiens 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blues win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 20 points of win probability to the Blues.

The biggest swing (P2, 19:34 left): Dylan Holloway scored on a backhand shot from 5 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Blues.

Final

St. Louis Blues 4
Montreal Canadiens 3

December 7, 2025 · Centre Bell

Luck index +49 Blues lucky · −49 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. Blues win 5, Canadiens win 5.

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

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 4,000.1 replays ended

Blues win 51% of them, Canadiens 49%. The line is what actually happened: Blues by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blues by 3+19.6%
Blues by 210.4%
Blues by 120.8%
Canadiens by 121.8%
Canadiens by 29.9%
Canadiens by 3+17.5%

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 Blues: the final margin was Blues by 1, without the luck even. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blues2842.57+1.43
Canadiens3732.90+0.10

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 17:12 Hooking on the Blues (Logan Mailloux): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P1 12:01 Slashing on the Canadiens (Zachary Bolduc): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P2 15:11 Too many men on the ice on the Blues (STL): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 0:38 Holding the stick on the Canadiens (Noah Dobson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% STL

When it happened

Canadiens’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 72%. 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 Blues were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:03 Brayden Schenn scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 11% chance +15% STL –
2 P1 7:40 Lane Hutson scored on a backhand shot from 3 feetShooting · 17% chance +15% MTL –
3 P1 0:57 Cole Caufield scored on a snap shot from 17 feetShooting · 13% chance +16% MTL –
4 P2 19:34 Dylan Holloway scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 13% chance +16% STL –
5 P2 18:55 Pavel Buchnevich scored on a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 22% chance +15% STL –
6 P3 9:36 Brayden Schenn scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 11% chance +12% STL –
7 P3 3:45 Noah Dobson scored on a slap shot from 53 feetShooting · 2% chance +9% MTL –
8 P3 0:01 Cole Caufield’s snap shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 20% chance +10% STL –

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

Blues 45% · Canadiens 55%

Final margin
Blues by 1
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Blues
Luck-adjusted margin
even
Replay with same day's form
Blues 51% · Canadiens 49% 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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