luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 4, 2026 · OT

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

Canadiens at Stars, Jan 4, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Canadiens beat the Stars 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Canadiens win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Canadiens.

The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Canadiens won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Canadiens.

Final (OT)

Montreal Canadiens 4
Dallas Stars 3

January 4, 2026 · American Airlines Center

Luck index +45 Canadiens lucky · −45 Stars

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, Stars win 4.

  1. 1 MTL 6 DAL 1
  2. 2 MTL 4 DAL 1
  3. 3 MTL 4 DAL 1
  4. 4 MTL 4 DAL 2
  5. 5 MTL 3 DAL 2
  6. 6 MTL 5 DAL 4
  7. 7 MTL 2 DAL 3
  8. 8 MTL 3 DAL 4
  9. 9 MTL 1 DAL 4
  10. 10 MTL 3 DAL 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 replays ended

Canadiens win 55% of them, Stars 45%. The line is what actually happened: Canadiens by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canadiens by 3+26.0%
Canadiens by 210.0%
Canadiens by 119.3%
Stars by 120.2%
Stars by 28.5%
Stars by 3+15.9%

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 +0.8 goals to the Canadiens: the final margin was Canadiens 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
Canadiens3633.18−0.18
Stars3632.84+0.16

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 3:42 Holding on the Canadiens (Ivan Demidov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P1 0:27 Tripping on the Stars (Jamie Benn): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 18:24 Hooking on the Stars (Ilya Lyubushkin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 11:47 Too many men on the ice on the Canadiens (MTL): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DAL
P2 6:00 Slashing on the Stars (Esa Lindell): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MTL
P2 1:50 Slashing on the Stars (Sam Steel): 2 minutes on the power play +6% MTL
P3 5:11 Hooking on the Canadiens (Phillip Danault): 2 minutes on the power play +9% DAL
P3 4:00 Hooking on the Stars (Wyatt Johnston): 2 minutes on the power play +9% MTL

When it happened

Stars’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 74%. 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 Stars were ahead in it, below while the Canadiens were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:18 Brendan Gallagher scored on a deflected shot from 9 feetShooting · 7% chance +16% MTL –
2 P1 6:07 Mavrik Bourque scored on a wraparound from 5 feetShooting · 5% chance +17% DAL –
3 P2 9:46 Wyatt Johnston scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 15% chance +18% DAL –
4 P2 8:01 Oliver Kapanen scored on a slap shot from 32 feetShooting · 8% chance +20% MTL –
5 P2 1:21 Juraj Slafkovský scored on a slap shot from 26 feetShooting · 16% chance +21% MTL –
6 P3 8:53 Wyatt Johnston scored on a snap shot from 14 feetShooting · 15% chance +29% DAL –
7 P3 4:00 Hooking on the Stars (Wyatt Johnston): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +9% MTL –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Canadiens won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% 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 55% · Stars 45%

Final margin
Canadiens by 1
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Canadiens
Luck-adjusted margin
Canadiens by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Canadiens 55% · Stars 45% 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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