luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · February 28, 2026

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

Capitals at Canadiens, Feb 28, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Canadiens beat the Capitals 6–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Canadiens win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 24 points of win probability to the Canadiens.

The biggest swing (P1, 5:41 left): Cole Caufield scored on a backhand shot from 6 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Canadiens.

Final

Washington Capitals 2
Montreal Canadiens 6

February 28, 2026 · Centre Bell

Luck index +57 Canadiens lucky · −57 Capitals

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. Capitals win 6, Canadiens win 4.

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

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 4,000.1 replays ended

Capitals win 57% of them, Canadiens 43%. The line is what actually happened: Canadiens by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Capitals by 3+30.8%
Capitals by 28.8%
Capitals by 117.5%
Canadiens by 118.4%
Canadiens by 28.4%
Canadiens by 3+16.2%

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 +3.7 goals to the Canadiens: the final margin was Canadiens by 4, without the luck Canadiens by 0.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Capitals4224.47−2.47
Canadiens3643.14+0.86

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 13:54 Roughing on the Capitals (Brandon Duhaime): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MTL
P1 11:36 Holding on the Canadiens (Mike Matheson): 2 minutes on the power play +3% WSH
P2 9:51 Roughing removing opponents helmet on the Capitals (Ryan Leonard): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 2:43 Slashing on the Canadiens (Brendan Gallagher): 2 minutes on the power play +1% WSH
P3 12:09 Tripping on the Canadiens (Noah Dobson): 2 minutes on the power play +1% WSH
P3 6:27 Holding on the Capitals (Connor McMichael): 2 minutes on the power play +1% MTL
P3 2:23 Holding the stick on the Canadiens (Alexandre Carrier): 2 minutes on the power play 0% WSH

When it happened

Canadiens’ 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 Canadiens were ahead in it, below while the Capitals were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:30 Cole Caufield scored on a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 18% chance +13% MTL –
2 P1 9:41 Ethen Frank’s snap shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 28% chance +5% MTL –
3 P1 6:44 Alex Ovechkin scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 20% chance +14% WSH –
4 P1 5:41 Cole Caufield scored on a backhand shot from 6 feetShooting · 12% chance +15% MTL –
5 P2 19:19 Dylan Strome’s snap shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 26% chance +5% MTL –
6 P2 8:21 Ivan Demidov’s snap shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 38% chance +6% WSH –
7 P2 7:38 Mike Matheson scored on a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 18% chance +12% MTL –
8 P2 3:26 Kirby Dach scored on a snap shot from 34 feetShooting · 9% chance +6% 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

Capitals 44% · Canadiens 56%

Final margin
Canadiens by 4
Luck in goals
3.7 for the Canadiens
Luck-adjusted margin
Canadiens by 0.3
Replay with same day's form
Capitals 57% · Canadiens 43% 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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