luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 15, 2026

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

Ducks at Canadiens, Mar 15, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Ducks beat the Canadiens 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Ducks win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 24 points of win probability to the Ducks.

The game turned on a luck play (P2, 4:21 left): Troy Terry scored on a backhand shot from 18 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Ducks. The biggest single swing (P3, 2:30 left): Cutter Gauthier scored on a snap shot from 17 feet.

Final

Anaheim Ducks 4
Montreal Canadiens 3

March 15, 2026 · Centre Bell

Luck index +47 Ducks lucky · −47 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. Ducks win 5, Canadiens win 5.

  1. 1 ANA 6 MTL 1
  2. 2 ANA 4 MTL 1
  3. 3 ANA 3 MTL 0
  4. 4 ANA 6 MTL 5
  5. 5 ANA 4 MTL 3
  6. 6 ANA 3 MTL 4
  7. 7 ANA 1 MTL 2
  8. 8 ANA 3 MTL 5
  9. 9 ANA 3 MTL 6
  10. 10 ANA 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Ducks win 53% of them, Canadiens 47%. The line is what actually happened: Ducks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Ducks by 3+24.0%
Ducks by 29.9%
Ducks by 119.6%
Canadiens by 119.3%
Canadiens by 28.8%
Canadiens by 3+18.4%

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.

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 +0.1 goals to the Canadiens: the final margin was Ducks by 1, without the luck Ducks by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Ducks4043.66+0.34
Canadiens4533.65−0.65

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 9:00 Hooking on the Ducks (Alex Killorn): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P1 7:11 Tripping on the Ducks (Olen Zellweger): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 13:16 Delaying game puck over glass on the Ducks (Ian Moore): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MTL
P3 17:29 Holding on the Canadiens (Phillip Danault): 2 minutes on the power play +6% ANA
P3 10:09 Tripping on the Ducks (Mikael Granlund): 2 minutes on the power play +7% MTL

When it happened

Canadiens’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 75%. 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 Ducks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 12:14 Leo Carlsson scored on a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 26% chance +13% ANA –
2 P2 19:33 Leo Carlsson scored on a slap shot from 38 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% ANA –
3 P2 18:27 Alex Newhook scored on a snap shot from 34 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% MTL –
4 P2 17:27 Cole Caufield scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 10% chance +18% MTL –
5 P2 6:54 Nick Suzuki scored on a snap shot from 32 feetShooting · 8% chance +20% MTL –
6 P2 4:21 The game turned hereTroy Terry scored on a backhand shot from 18 feetShooting · 9% chance +21% ANA –
7 P3 17:53 Beckett Sennecke’s snap shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 49% chance +13% MTL –
8 P3 2:30 Cutter Gauthier scored on a snap shot from 17 feetShooting · 17% chance +35% ANA –

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

Ducks 74% · Canadiens 26%

Final margin
Ducks by 1
Luck in goals
0.1 for the Canadiens
Luck-adjusted margin
Ducks by 1.1
Replay with same day's form
Ducks 53% · Canadiens 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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