luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

First round 2025-26 · April 26, 2026

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

Lightning at Canadiens, Game 4, first round 2025-26: who deserved to win?

The Lightning beat the Canadiens 3–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P3, 4:53 left): Brandon Hagel scored on a deflected shot from 6 feet, worth 33 points of win probability to the Lightning.

Final

Tampa Bay Lightning 3
Montreal Canadiens 2

April 26, 2026 · Centre Bell

Luck index +39 Lightning lucky · −39 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. Lightning win 6, Canadiens win 4.

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

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 replays ended

Lightning win 61% of them, Canadiens 39%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+32.4%
Lightning by 210.9%
Lightning by 118.1%
Canadiens by 115.7%
Canadiens by 28.4%
Canadiens by 3+14.5%

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 Lightning: the final margin was Lightning by 1, without the luck Lightning by 0.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning4233.96−0.96
Canadiens3223.07−1.07

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 17:56 Too many men on the ice on the Canadiens (MTL): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P1 12:38 High sticking on the Lightning (Max Crozier): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P1 10:50 Cross checking on the Lightning (Yanni Gourde): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 19:19 Boarding on the Canadiens (Josh Anderson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 9:36 Hooking on the Canadiens (Alex Newhook): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 7:36 Slashing on the Lightning (Jake Guentzel): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MTL
P2 6:02 Delaying game puck over glass on the Lightning (Darren Raddysh): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MTL
P2 1:55 Slashing on the Canadiens (Mike Matheson): 2 minutes on the power play +2% TBL
P2 1:27 Slashing on the Lightning (Brandon Hagel): 2 minutes on the power play +2% MTL
P3 19:09 High sticking on the Canadiens (Oliver Kapanen): 2 minutes on the power play +5% TBL
P3 9:16 High sticking on the Canadiens (Mike Matheson): 2 minutes on the power play +8% TBL
P3 8:27 Cross checking on the Canadiens (Jake Evans): 2 minutes on the power play +8% TBL
P3 2:33 Slashing on the Lightning (Nikita Kucherov): 2 minutes on the power play +6% MTL

When it happened

Canadiens’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 91%. 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 Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 9:54 Zachary Bolduc scored on a deflected shot from 7 feetShooting · 12% chance +19% MTL –
2 P2 6:31 Cole Caufield scored on a snap shot from 5 feetShooting · 43% chance +8% MTL –
3 P2 0:54 Jake Guentzel scored on a snap shot from 14 feetShooting · 19% chance +12% TBL –
4 P3 18:20 Brandon Hagel scored on a snap shot from 5 feetShooting · 34% chance +17% TBL –
5 P3 9:16 High sticking on the Canadiens (Mike Matheson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% TBL –
6 P3 8:27 Cross checking on the Canadiens (Jake Evans): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% TBL –
7 P3 7:11 Corey Perry’s snap shot from 13 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance +8% MTL –
8 P3 4:53 Brandon Hagel scored on a deflected shot from 6 feetShooting · 14% chance +33% TBL –

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

Lightning 64% · Canadiens 36%

Final margin
Lightning by 1
Luck in goals
0.1 for the Lightning
Luck-adjusted margin
Lightning by 0.9
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 61% · Canadiens 39% 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.

All first round 2025-26 games · Lightning · Canadiens

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