luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 30, 2026

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

Canucks at Golden Knights, Mar 30, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Golden Knights beat the Canucks 4–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The biggest swing (P2, 1:26 left): Reilly Smith scored on a wrist shot from 16 feet, worth 22 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

Final

Vancouver Canucks 2
Vegas Golden Knights 4

March 30, 2026 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +31 Golden Knights lucky · −31 Canucks

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. Canucks win 3, Golden Knights win 7.

  1. 1 VAN 3 VGK 0
  2. 2 VAN 4 VGK 3
  3. 3 VAN 3 VGK 2
  4. 4 VAN 2 VGK 3
  5. 5 VAN 3 VGK 4
  6. 6 VAN 1 VGK 3
  7. 7 VAN 0 VGK 3
  8. 8 VAN 1 VGK 4
  9. 9 VAN 1 VGK 5
  10. 10 VAN 0 VGK 5

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

Canucks win 31% of them, Golden Knights 69%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canucks by 3+6.1%
Canucks by 25.5%
Canucks by 119.3%
Golden Knights by 120.3%
Golden Knights by 212.9%
Golden Knights by 3+35.8%

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 +0.4 goals to the Canucks: the final margin was Golden Knights by 2, without the luck Golden Knights by 2.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canucks2821.69+0.31
Golden Knights4533.25−0.25

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 11:42 Slashing on the Canucks (Liam Ohgren): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 18:01 Tripping on the Canucks (Victor Mancini): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 8:06 Holding on the Golden Knights (Keegan Kolesar): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN

When it happened

Golden Knights’ chance of winning

As low as 28% 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 Golden Knights were ahead in it, below while the Canucks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 7:41 Evander Kane scored on a backhand shot from 6 feetShooting · 14% chance +15% VAN –
2 P2 13:01 Mitch Marner missed the net with a between-the-legs shot from 10 feetShooting · 26% chance +5% VAN –
3 P2 12:12 Rasmus Andersson scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 17% chance +18% VGK –
4 P2 8:06 Holding on the Golden Knights (Keegan Kolesar): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% VAN –
5 P2 7:43 Brock Boeser scored on a tip from 23 feetShooting · 10% chance +20% VAN –
6 P2 5:44 Pavel Dorofeyev’s wrist shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +4% VAN –
7 P2 2:43 Shea Theodore scored on a snap shot from 27 feetShooting · 13% chance +21% VGK –
8 P2 1:26 Reilly Smith scored on a wrist shot from 16 feetShooting · 8% chance +22% VGK –

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

Canucks 8% · Golden Knights 92%

Final margin
Golden Knights by 2
Luck in goals
0.4 for the Canucks
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 2.4
Replay with same day's form
Canucks 31% · Golden Knights 69% 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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