luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 23, 2025

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

Canadiens at Bruins, Dec 23, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Canadiens beat the Bruins 6–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Canadiens win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 29 points of win probability to the Canadiens.

The biggest swing (P3, 12:56 left): Zachary Bolduc scored on a wrist shot from 17 feet, worth 33 points of win probability to the Canadiens.

Final

Montreal Canadiens 6
Boston Bruins 2

December 23, 2025 · TD Garden

Luck index +51 Canadiens lucky · −51 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. Canadiens win 5, Bruins win 5.

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

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

Canadiens win 49% of them, Bruins 51%. The line is what actually happened: Canadiens by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canadiens by 3+20.0%
Canadiens by 210.0%
Canadiens by 119.2%
Bruins by 121.1%
Bruins by 29.1%
Bruins by 3+20.6%

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 +3.0 goals to the Canadiens: the final margin was Canadiens by 4, without the luck Canadiens by 1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canadiens4363.07+2.93
Bruins3523.01−1.01

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 19:31 Holding on the Bruins (Hampus Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P1 11:29 Interference on the Canadiens (Juraj Slafkovský): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 6:19 Slashing on the Canadiens (Brendan Gallagher): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 4:04 Slashing on the Bruins (Viktor Arvidsson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P1 2:02 Hooking on the Canadiens (Ivan Demidov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P2 15:45 Slashing on the Canadiens (Josh Anderson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BOS
P2 5:23 High sticking double minor on the Bruins (Alex Steeves): 4 minutes on the power play +11% MTL
P3 12:56 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Bruins (BOS): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MTL
P3 11:36 Cross checking on the Bruins (Tanner Jeannot): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MTL
P3 11:02 Tripping on the Bruins (Hampus Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +2% MTL
P3 1:08 Holding on the Canadiens (Juraj Slafkovský): 2 minutes on the power play 0% BOS

When it happened

Bruins’ 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 Bruins were ahead in it, below while the Canadiens were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 8:52 Sammy Blais scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 3% chance +17% MTL –
2 P1 7:35 Marat Khusnutdinov scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 14% chance +15% BOS –
3 P1 5:30 Morgan Geekie’s snap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 37% chance +6% MTL –
4 P1 0:18 Alex Steeves scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 9% chance +17% BOS –
5 P2 18:02 Ivan Demidov scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 22% chance +15% MTL –
6 P2 5:23 High sticking double minor on the Bruins (Alex Steeves): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +11% MTL –
7 P3 12:56 Zachary Bolduc scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 9% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Bruins (BOS): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +33% MTL –
8 P3 11:17 Cole Caufield scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 19% chance +12% MTL –

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

Canadiens 67% · Bruins 33%

Final margin
Canadiens by 4
Luck in goals
3.0 for the Canadiens
Luck-adjusted margin
Canadiens by 1.0
Replay with same day's form
Canadiens 49% · Bruins 51% 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 12 2025-26 games · Canadiens · Bruins

More from week 12, 2025-26

Every game of week 12, 2025-26