2026-27 regular season · October 20, 2026 · OT
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Sharks at Canadiens, Oct 20, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Sharks beat the Canadiens 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Sharks win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Sharks.
The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Sharks won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Sharks.
Final (OT)
 San Jose Sharks | 4 |
|---|---|
 Montreal Canadiens | 3 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +58 Sharks lucky · −58 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. Sharks win 4, Canadiens win 6.
- 1 SJS 5 MTL 2
- 2 SJS 4 MTL 1
- 3 SJS 4 MTL 3
- 4 SJS 2 MTL 1
- 5 SJS 5 MTL 6
- 6 SJS 3 MTL 4
- 7 SJS 0 MTL 2
- 8 SJS 1 MTL 4
- 9 SJS 1 MTL 4
- 10 SJS 2 MTL 7
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Canadiens by 0.7, 62% to win. The Sharks won by 1, a result we gave 38%. The final margin was 1.7 goals from ours; 49% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Sharks win | 38.5% |
| Canadiens win | 61.5% |
| Middle 50%: Sharks by 1 to Canadiens by 3 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Sharks by 3 to Canadiens by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Sharks by 4 to Canadiens by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Canadiens by 1 | 22.3% |
| Exactly Sharks by 1 | 17.7% |
| Exactly Canadiens by 3 | 15.5% |
| Exactly Canadiens by 2 | 11.4% |
| Exactly Sharks by 3 | 8.1% |
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 Tue, Oct 20, 11:27 am 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 replays ended
Sharks win 42% of them, Canadiens 58%. The line is what actually happened: Sharks by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Sharks by 3+ | 14.2% |
| Sharks by 2 | 8.5% |
| Sharks by 1 | 19.1% |
| Canadiens by 1 | 19.5% |
| Canadiens by 2 | 10.3% |
| Canadiens by 3+ | 28.4% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Sharks | 39 | 3 | 2.98 | +0.02 |
 Canadiens | 56 | 3 | 3.61 | −0.61 |
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 9:15 | Holding the stick on the Sharks (Ty Dellandrea): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% MTL |
| P1 2:38 | Holding on the Sharks (Michael Misa): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% MTL |
| P2 2:33 | High sticking on the Canadiens (Alexandre Texier): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% SJS |
| P3 10:27 | Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Canadiens (Arber Xhekaj): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% SJS |
| OT 3:07 | Interference on the Canadiens (Jakub Dobes): 2 minutes on the power play | +12% SJS |
When it happened
Canadiens’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 94%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 6:11 | Macklin Celebrini scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 18% chance | +15% SJS | – |
| 2 | P1 3:22 | Nick Suzuki scored on a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 14% chance | +16% MTL | – |
| 3 | P2 18:11 | Juraj Slafkovský scored on a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 21% chance | +15% MTL | – |
| 4 | P2 5:57 | Cole Caufield scored on a snap shot from 14 feetShooting · 11% chance | +13% MTL | – |
| 5 | P3 14:24 | Michael Misa scored on a snap shot from 11 feetShooting · 16% chance | +12% SJS | – |
| 6 | P3 8:51 | Tyler Toffoli scored on a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 22% chance | +26% SJS | – |
| 7 | OT | The game turned hereThe Sharks won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip | +51% SJS | – |
| 8 | OT 3:07 | Interference on the Canadiens (Jakub Dobes): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +12% SJS | – |
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
Sharks 39% · Canadiens 61%
- Final margin
- Sharks by 1
- Luck in goals
- 1.5 for the Sharks
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Canadiens by 0.5
- Replay with same day's form
- Sharks 42% · Canadiens 58% 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 4, 2026-27
- Wild at Oilers Oct 20, 2026 · EDM 4–3 OT · replay 30% for the winner
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- Wild at Flames Oct 22, 2026 · CGY 2–1 · replay 33% for the winner
- Lightning at Avalanche Oct 23, 2026 · COL 6–3 · replay 36% for the winner
- Lightning at Golden Knights Oct 20, 2026 · TBL 6–2 · replay 38% for the winner
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