luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 28, 2025 · SO

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

Canadiens at Lightning, Dec 28, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Lightning beat the Canadiens 5–4, but the replays lean toward the Canadiens: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Lightning.

The biggest swing (SO): the Lightning won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Lightning.

Final (SO)

Montreal Canadiens 4
Tampa Bay Lightning 5

December 28, 2025 · Benchmark International Arena

Luck index +65 Lightning very lucky · −65 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. Canadiens win 6, Lightning win 4.

  1. 1 MTL 7 TBL 1
  2. 2 MTL 7 TBL 3
  3. 3 MTL 6 TBL 3
  4. 4 MTL 4 TBL 2
  5. 5 MTL 2 TBL 1
  6. 6 MTL 3 TBL 2
  7. 7 MTL 3 TBL 4
  8. 8 MTL 2 TBL 3
  9. 9 MTL 2 TBL 4
  10. 10 MTL 1 TBL 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 3,999.8 replays ended

Canadiens win 65% of them, Lightning 35%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canadiens by 3+37.0%
Canadiens by 211.0%
Canadiens by 116.9%
Lightning by 118.3%
Lightning by 26.6%
Lightning by 3+10.1%

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 +1.2 goals to the Lightning: the final margin was Lightning by 1, without the luck Canadiens by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canadiens5644.54−0.54
Lightning3042.88+1.12

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 16:10 Holding on the Lightning (Max Crozier): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P1 7:45 Delaying game puck over glass on the Lightning (Nick Paul): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P1 1:53 Holding on the Lightning (Charle-Edouard D'Astous): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 16:06 Hooking on the Canadiens (Alexandre Texier): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 7:41 Slashing on the Lightning (Nikita Kucherov): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MTL

When it happened

Lightning’ chance of winning

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 Lightning were ahead in it, below while the Canadiens were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 17:32 Nikita Kucherov scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 23% chance +15% TBL –
2 P2 7:49 Nikita Kucherov scored on a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 17% chance +12% TBL –
3 P2 5:11 Nick Paul scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 21% chance +5% TBL –
4 P3 18:20 Pontus Holmberg scored on a tip from 21 feetShooting · 6% chance +5% TBL –
5 P3 7:43 Noah Dobson scored on a snap shot from 41 feetShooting · 4% chance +11% MTL –
6 P3 5:02 Brendan Gallagher’s snap shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 50% chanceBrendan Gallagher’s snap shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 34% chance +32% TBL –
7 P3 0:04 Juraj Slafkovský scored on a snap shot from 31 feetShooting · 7% chance +45% MTL –
8 SO The Lightning won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% TBL –

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 53% · Lightning 47%

Final margin
Lightning by 1
Luck in goals
1.2 for the Lightning
Luck-adjusted margin
Canadiens by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Canadiens 65% · Lightning 35% 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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