luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 20, 2025 · SO

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

Canucks at Bruins, Dec 20, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Canucks beat the Bruins 5–4, but the replays lean toward the Bruins: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 50 points of win probability to the Canucks.

The game turned on a luck play (SO): the Canucks won the shootout, worth 50 points of win probability to the Canucks.

Final (SO)

Vancouver Canucks 5
Boston Bruins 4

December 20, 2025 · TD Garden

Luck index +74 Canucks very lucky · −74 Bruins

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 3, Bruins win 7.

  1. 1 VAN 6 BOS 3
  2. 2 VAN 2 BOS 1
  3. 3 VAN 4 BOS 3
  4. 4 VAN 4 BOS 5
  5. 5 VAN 3 BOS 4
  6. 6 VAN 3 BOS 5
  7. 7 VAN 0 BOS 3
  8. 8 VAN 2 BOS 5
  9. 9 VAN 0 BOS 4
  10. 10 VAN 1 BOS 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 3,999.7 replays ended

Canucks win 26% of them, Bruins 74%. The line is what actually happened: Canucks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canucks by 3+5.0%
Canucks by 24.3%
Canucks by 116.5%
Bruins by 119.2%
Bruins by 212.4%
Bruins by 3+42.7%

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 +2.4 goals to the Canucks: the final margin was Canucks 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
Canucks3241.60+2.40
Bruins5043.48+0.52

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 12:26 Hooking on the Canucks (Tyler Myers): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 9:35 Tripping on the Canucks (Marcus Pettersson): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BOS
P1 3:41 Hooking on the Bruins (Andrew Peeke): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P2 16:48 High sticking on the Bruins (Michael Eyssimont): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN
P3 18:45 Hooking on the Canucks (David Kampf): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BOS
P3 11:49 Interference on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN
P3 10:07 Tripping on the Bruins (Hampus Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN

When it happened

Bruins’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 79%. 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 Bruins were ahead in it, below while the Canucks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 0:15 Max Sasson scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 12% chance +16% VAN –
2 P2 15:38 Linus Karlsson scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 18% chance +17% VAN –
3 P2 10:19 Pavel Zacha scored on a wrist shot from 4 feetShooting · 27% chance +16% BOS –
4 P2 7:55 Tanner Jeannot scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 8% chance +20% BOS –
5 P3 16:07 Linus Karlsson scored on a snap shot from 35 feetShooting · 5% chance +26% VAN –
6 P3 12:26 Liam Ohgren scored on a tip from 13 feetShooting · 7% chance +28% VAN –
7 P3 3:44 Andrew Peeke scored on a wrist shot from 62 feetShooting · 1% chance +40% BOS –
8 SO The game turned hereThe Canucks won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +49% 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 19% · Bruins 81%

Final margin
Canucks by 1
Luck in goals
2.4 for the Canucks
Luck-adjusted margin
Bruins by 1.4
Replay with same day's form
Canucks 26% · Bruins 74% 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.

All week 11 2025-26 games · Canucks · Bruins

More from week 11, 2025-26

Every game of week 11, 2025-26