2025-26 regular season · January 8, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Flames at Bruins, Jan 8, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Bruins beat the Flames 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Bruins win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 19 points of win probability to the Bruins.
The biggest swing (P1, 10:12 left): Sean Kuraly scored on a wrist shot from 32 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Bruins.
Final
 Calgary Flames | 1 |
|---|---|
 Boston Bruins | 4 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +44 Bruins lucky · −44 Flames
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. Flames win 4, Bruins win 6.
- 1 CGY 6 BOS 2
- 2 CGY 5 BOS 3
- 3 CGY 2 BOS 1
- 4 CGY 5 BOS 4
- 5 CGY 2 BOS 3
- 6 CGY 4 BOS 5
- 7 CGY 2 BOS 4
- 8 CGY 1 BOS 4
- 9 CGY 2 BOS 5
- 10 CGY 2 BOS 7
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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
Flames win 44% of them, Bruins 56%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 3.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Flames by 3+ | 17.0% |
| Flames by 2 | 8.9% |
| Flames by 1 | 18.6% |
| Bruins by 1 | 19.8% |
| Bruins by 2 | 10.3% |
| Bruins by 3+ | 25.4% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Flames | 39 | 1 | 2.98 | −1.98 |
 Bruins | 53 | 4 | 3.22 | +0.78 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P2 12:43 | Tripping on the Flames (Mikael Backlund): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% BOS |
| P2 12:16 | Interference on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% CGY |
| P3 14:12 | Tripping on the Bruins (Jonathan Aspirot): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% CGY |
| P3 8:23 | Holding on the Flames (Joel Farabee): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% BOS |
When it happened
Bruins’ chance of winning
Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 15:24 | Mikael Backlund’s snap shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 26% chance | +4% BOS | – |
| 2 | P1 10:12 | Sean Kuraly scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 6% chance | +16% BOS | – |
| 3 | P1 7:54 | Elias Lindholm scored on a snap shot from 26 feetShooting · 9% chance | +12% BOS | – |
| 4 | P2 12:43 | Tripping on the Flames (Mikael Backlund): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +3% BOS | – |
| 5 | P2 12:16 | Interference on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +3% CGY | – |
| 6 | P2 12:09 | MacKenzie Weegar hit the left post with a slap shot from 33 feetShooting · 15% chance | +2% BOS | – |
| 7 | P2 7:46 | Morgan Frost’s snap shot from 15 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance | +3% BOS | – |
| 8 | P2 5:58 | Mason Lohrei scored on a wrist shot from 35 feetShooting · 5% chance | +7% BOS | – |
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
Flames 30% · Bruins 70%
- Final margin
- Bruins by 3
- Luck in goals
- 2.1 for the Bruins
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Bruins by 0.9
- Replay with same day's form
- Flames 44% · Bruins 56% unchanged: why
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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