luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · February 2, 2026 · OT

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

Canadiens at Wild, Feb 2, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Wild beat the Canadiens 4–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10. The Canadiens had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 25 points of win probability to the Canadiens.

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

Final (OT)

Montreal Canadiens 3
Minnesota Wild 4

February 2, 2026 · Grand Casino Arena

Luck index +36 Wild lucky · −36 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 4, Wild win 6.

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

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 36% of them, Wild 64%. The line is what actually happened: Wild by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canadiens by 3+7.9%
Canadiens by 27.0%
Canadiens by 121.3%
Wild by 124.5%
Wild by 212.9%
Wild by 3+26.3%

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 +0.3 goals to the Wild: the final margin was Wild by 1, without the luck Wild by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canadiens2831.60+1.40
Wild4632.44+0.56

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 19:05 Hooking on the Canadiens (Oliver Kapanen): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MIN
P2 12:07 Tripping on the Canadiens (Lane Hutson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 8:46 Tripping on the Wild (Zach Bogosian): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
OT 2:26 Hooking on the Canadiens (Phillip Danault): 2 minutes on the power play +12% MIN

When it happened

Wild’ chance of winning

As low as 23% 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 Wild were ahead in it, below while the Canadiens were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:22 Joel Eriksson Ek scored on a wrist shot from 38 feetShooting · 3% chance +15% MIN –
2 P1 4:12 Kirill Kaprizov scored on a tip from 13 feetShooting · 9% chance +13% MIN –
3 P1 0:52 Brendan Gallagher scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 18% chance +11% MTL –
4 P2 0:17 Ivan Demidov scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 10% chance +22% MTL –
5 P3 19:48 Kirby Dach scored on a tip from 3 feetShooting · 12% chance +23% MTL –
6 P3 12:55 Brock Faber scored on a wrist shot from 21 feetShooting · 12% chance +26% MIN –
7 OT The Wild won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% MIN –
8 OT 2:26 Hooking on the Canadiens (Phillip Danault): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +12% MIN –

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 33% · Wild 67%

Final margin
Wild by 1
Luck in goals
0.3 for the Wild
Luck-adjusted margin
Wild by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Canadiens 36% · Wild 64% 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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