luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 27, 2026 · OT

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

Golden Knights at Canadiens, Jan 27, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Canadiens beat the Golden Knights 3–2, but the replays lean toward the Golden Knights: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Canadiens.

The biggest swing (OT): the Canadiens won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Canadiens.

Final (OT)

Vegas Golden Knights 2
Montreal Canadiens 3

January 27, 2026 · Centre Bell

Luck index +68 Canadiens very lucky · −68 Golden Knights

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. Golden Knights win 7, Canadiens win 3.

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

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

Golden Knights win 68% of them, Canadiens 32%. The line is what actually happened: Canadiens by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Golden Knights by 3+43.6%
Golden Knights by 29.4%
Golden Knights by 114.9%
Canadiens by 115.9%
Canadiens by 26.7%
Canadiens by 3+9.5%

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 +2.5 goals to the Canadiens: the final margin was Canadiens by 1, without the luck Golden Knights by 1.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Golden Knights4425.00−3.00
Canadiens3922.98−0.98

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
P2 19:24 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Ivan Barbashev): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 9:29 Holding on the Golden Knights (Alexander Holtz): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 3:26 Hooking on the Canadiens (Cole Caufield): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 0:42 Holding the stick on the Canadiens (Lane Hutson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
P3 18:23 Interference on the Canadiens (Oliver Kapanen): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
P3 10:59 Slashing on the Golden Knights (Shea Theodore): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MTL
P3 0:33 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play +11% MTL

When it happened

Canadiens’ chance of winning

As low as 33% and as high as 100%. 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 Canadiens were ahead in it, below while the Golden Knights were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:22 Pavel Dorofeyev scored on a snap shot from 29 feetShooting · 9% chance +15% VGK –
2 P2 15:36 Phillip Danault scored on a tip from 18 feetShooting · 6% chance +19% MTL –
3 P2 11:05 Cole Caufield scored on a backhand shot from 4 feetShooting · 15% chance +18% MTL –
4 P3 19:29 Mark Stone’s snap shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 40% chance +10% MTL –
5 P3 19:28 Mark Stone missed the net with a snap shot from 3 feetShooting · 47% chance +12% MTL –
6 P3 3:08 Pavel Dorofeyev scored on a tip from 18 feetShooting · 7% chance +38% VGK –
7 P3 0:33 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +11% MTL –
8 OT The Canadiens won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% 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

Golden Knights 78% · Canadiens 22%

Final margin
Canadiens by 1
Luck in goals
2.5 for the Canadiens
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 1.5
Replay with same day's form
Golden Knights 68% · Canadiens 32% 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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