luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 3, 2026

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

Canadiens at Sharks, Mar 3, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Sharks beat the Canadiens 7–5, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Sharks win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 57 points of win probability to the Sharks.

The biggest swing (P3, 3:26 left): Kiefer Sherwood scored on a wrist shot from 16 feet, worth 35 points of win probability to the Sharks.

Final

Montreal Canadiens 5
San Jose Sharks 7

March 3, 2026 · SAP Center at San Jose

Luck index +53 Sharks lucky · −53 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 5, Sharks win 5.

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

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 4,000.2 replays ended

Canadiens win 53% of them, Sharks 47%. The line is what actually happened: Sharks by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canadiens by 3+21.0%
Canadiens by 210.6%
Canadiens by 120.9%
Sharks by 122.9%
Sharks by 29.7%
Sharks by 3+14.9%

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 +2.1 goals to the Sharks: the final margin was Sharks by 2, without the luck Canadiens by 0.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canadiens5753.81+1.19
Sharks3662.35+3.65

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 8:18 Interference on the Canadiens (Nick Suzuki): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 17:47 Tripping on the Sharks (Collin Graf): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 13:05 Hooking on the Sharks (Macklin Celebrini): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 7:27 Slashing on the Canadiens (Oliver Kapanen): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P2 6:28 Tripping on the Sharks (Alexander Wennberg): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MTL
P3 17:17 Roughing on the Canadiens (Josh Anderson): 2 minutes on the power play +2% SJS
P3 16:06 Cross checking on the Sharks (Vincent Desharnais): 2 minutes on the power play +1% MTL
P3 11:02 Tripping on the Sharks (Sam Dickinson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MTL
P3 4:57 Too many men on the ice on the Canadiens (MTL): 2 minutes on the power play +9% SJS

When it happened

Sharks’ chance of winning

As low as 31% 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 Sharks were ahead in it, below while the Canadiens were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:42 Oliver Kapanen scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 6% chance +16% MTL –
2 P1 4:28 Collin Graf scored on a backhand shot from 6 feetShooting · 15% chance +16% SJS –
3 P2 14:51 Phillip Danault scored on a tip from 22 feetShooting · 5% chance +19% MTL –
4 P2 9:32 Michael Misa scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 10% chance +20% SJS –
5 P2 1:37 Macklin Celebrini scored on a wrist shot from 36 feetShooting · 4% chance +23% SJS –
6 P2 1:12 Alexander Wennberg scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 9% chance +14% SJS –
7 P3 9:04 Alex Newhook scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 4% chance +31% MTL –
8 P3 3:26 Kiefer Sherwood scored on a wrist shot from 16 feetShooting · 13% chance +35% SJS –

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 48% · Sharks 52%

Final margin
Sharks by 2
Luck in goals
2.1 for the Sharks
Luck-adjusted margin
Canadiens by 0.1
Replay with same day's form
Canadiens 53% · Sharks 47% 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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