2026-27 regular season · October 17, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Canucks at Lightning, Oct 17, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Lightning 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 (P3, 17:56 left): Jake Guentzel scored on a slap shot from 56 feet, worth 25 points of win probability to the Lightning.
Final
 Vancouver Canucks | 2 |
|---|---|
 Tampa Bay Lightning | 4 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +29 Lightning lucky · −29 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, Lightning win 7.
- 1 VAN 3 TBL 1
- 2 VAN 2 TBL 1
- 3 VAN 5 TBL 4
- 4 VAN 2 TBL 3
- 5 VAN 2 TBL 3
- 6 VAN 3 TBL 5
- 7 VAN 1 TBL 4
- 8 VAN 2 TBL 5
- 9 VAN 0 TBL 4
- 10 VAN 1 TBL 6
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Lightning by 1.1, 69% to win. The Lightning won by 2: the pick was right. The final margin was 0.9 goals from ours; 65% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Canucks win | 31.4% |
| Lightning win | 68.5% |
| Middle 50%: Canucks by 1 to Lightning by 3 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Canucks by 3 to Lightning by 5 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Canucks by 4 to Lightning by 6 | 95% |
| Exactly Lightning by 1 | 22.5% |
| Exactly Lightning by 3 | 17.9% |
| Exactly Canucks by 1 | 15.5% |
| Exactly Lightning by 2 | 12.3% |
| Exactly Lightning by 4 | 9.5% |
Most of the distance between a forecast and a final score is luck: a hot goalie, a post or a deflection moves a hockey score more than anything known before the game. Made Sat, Oct 17, 2:47 pm ET and frozen at puck drop. How our predictions have done
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
Canucks win 29% of them, Lightning 71%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 2.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Canucks by 3+ | 5.3% |
| Canucks by 2 | 5.2% |
| Canucks by 1 | 18.2% |
| Lightning by 1 | 18.4% |
| Lightning by 2 | 12.8% |
| Lightning by 3+ | 40.0% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Canucks | 27 | 2 | 1.70 | +0.30 |
 Lightning | 52 | 4 | 3.51 | +0.49 |
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 6:40 | Tripping on the Lightning (Nikita Kucherov): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% VAN |
| P2 16:41 | Tripping on the Lightning (Brayden Point): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% VAN |
| P2 14:25 | Hooking on the Canucks (Liam Ohgren): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% TBL |
When it happened
Lightning’ chance of winning
As low as 16% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 4:28 | Linus Karlsson scored on a slap shot from 47 feetShooting · 2% chance | +18% VAN | – |
| 2 | P2 16:41 | Tripping on the Lightning (Brayden Point): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% VAN | – |
| 3 | P2 15:25 | Elias Pettersson scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 4% chance | +15% VAN | – |
| 4 | P2 13:30 | Nikita Kucherov scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 12% chance | +14% TBL | – |
| 5 | P2 8:37 | Nikita Kucherov scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 12% chance | +20% TBL | – |
| 6 | P2 1:14 | Ilya Mikheyev’s wrist shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 35% chance | +8% VAN | – |
| 7 | P3 17:56 | Jake Guentzel scored on a slap shot from 56 feetShooting · 3% chance | +25% TBL | – |
| 8 | P3 4:03 | Pontus Holmberg scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 10% chance | +8% 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
Canucks 1% · Lightning 99%
- Final margin
- Lightning by 2
- Luck in goals
- 2.1 for the Canucks
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Lightning by 4.1
- Replay with same day's form
- Canucks 29% · Lightning 71% 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 3, 2026-27
- Oilers at Kings Oct 13, 2026 · EDM 4–1 · replay 32% for the winner
- Kraken at Flyers Oct 13, 2026 · SEA 3–2 SO · replay 39% for the winner
- Hurricanes at Flames Oct 18, 2026 · CGY 3–2 · replay 40% for the winner
- Islanders at Maple Leafs Oct 17, 2026 · NYI 4–1 · replay 40% for the winner
- Golden Knights at Predators Oct 13, 2026 · VGK 5–2 · replay 41% for the winner
- Sharks at Red Wings Oct 17, 2026 · DET 4–3 SO · replay 41% for the winner
- Sabres at Maple Leafs Oct 15, 2026 · BUF 5–4 OT · replay 43% for the winner
- Oilers at Mammoth Oct 17, 2026 · EDM 6–2 · replay 45% for the winner
- Senators at Devils Oct 12, 2026 · OTT 4–1 · replay 45% for the winner
- Senators at Flyers Oct 17, 2026 · PHI 3–1 · replay 45% for the winner
- Penguins at Golden Knights Oct 17, 2026 · VGK 6–2 · replay 46% for the winner
- Canadiens at Capitals Oct 14, 2026 · WSH 5–4 · replay 46% for the winner