2025-26 regular season · April 7, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Golden Knights at Canucks, Apr 7, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Golden Knights beat the Canucks 2–1, and the replays back it up: with the way both teams actually played, the Golden Knights win 8 of 10. The Canucks had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 16 points of win probability to the Canucks.
The game turned on a luck play (P2, 4:14 left): Brayden McNabb scored on a snap shot from 46 feet, worth 22 points of win probability to the Golden Knights. The biggest single swing (P3, 7:47 left): Cole Smith scored on a snap shot from 33 feet.
Final
 Vegas Golden Knights | 2 |
|---|---|
 Vancouver Canucks | 1 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +20 Golden Knights about even · −20 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. Golden Knights win 8, Canucks win 2.
- 1 VGK 6 VAN 0
- 2 VGK 6 VAN 1
- 3 VGK 5 VAN 1
- 4 VGK 5 VAN 2
- 5 VGK 5 VAN 2
- 6 VGK 3 VAN 1
- 7 VGK 1 VAN 0
- 8 VGK 4 VAN 3
- 9 VGK 3 VAN 4
- 10 VGK 1 VAN 2
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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
Golden Knights win 80% of them, Canucks 20%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Golden Knights by 3+ | 54.4% |
| Golden Knights by 2 | 11.6% |
| Golden Knights by 1 | 14.3% |
| Canucks by 1 | 14.2% |
| Canucks by 2 | 3.2% |
| Canucks by 3+ | 2.3% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Golden Knights | 47 | 2 | 3.88 | −1.88 |
 Canucks | 23 | 1 | 1.46 | −0.46 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 10:33 | Cross checking on the Canucks (Curtis Douglas): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% VGK |
| P2 14:11 | High sticking on the Golden Knights (Colton Sissons): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% VAN |
| P3 1:41 | Interference on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% VAN |
When it happened
Canucks’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 75%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 6:12 | Colton Sissons missed the net with a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 14% chanceBrandon Saad’s snap shot from 11 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance | +6% VAN | – |
| 2 | P2 7:10 | Max Sasson scored on a snap shot from 39 feetShooting · 4% chance | +21% VAN | – |
| 3 | P2 4:14 | The game turned hereBrayden McNabb scored on a snap shot from 46 feetShooting · 2% chance | +22% VGK | – |
| 4 | P3 15:36 | Pavel Dorofeyev’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 20% chance | +6% VAN | – |
| 5 | P3 7:47 | Cole Smith scored on a snap shot from 33 feetShooting · 7% chance | +32% VGK | – |
| 6 | P3 1:41 | Interference on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +6% VAN | – |
| 7 | P3 0:25 | Aatu Räty missed the net with a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 16% chance | +8% VGK | – |
| 8 | P3 0:17 | Jake DeBrusk’s backhand shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 14% chance | +7% 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
Golden Knights 86% · Canucks 14%
- Final margin
- Golden Knights by 1
- Luck in goals
- 1.1 for the Canucks
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Golden Knights by 2.1
- Replay with same day's form
- Golden Knights 80% · Canucks 20% unchanged: why
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.
More from week 27, 2025-26
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