2026-27 regular season · October 23, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Canadiens at Blackhawks, Oct 23, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Canadiens beat the Blackhawks 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Canadiens win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 15 points of win probability to the Canadiens.
The biggest swing (P2, 12:15 left): Jake Evans scored on a wrist shot from 24 feet, worth 19 points of win probability to the Canadiens.
Final
 Montreal Canadiens | 4 |
|---|---|
 Chicago Blackhawks | 1 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +46 Canadiens lucky · −46 Blackhawks
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. Canadiens win 5, Blackhawks win 5.
- 1 MTL 5 CHI 1
- 2 MTL 3 CHI 0
- 3 MTL 3 CHI 1
- 4 MTL 2 CHI 1
- 5 MTL 4 CHI 3
- 6 MTL 2 CHI 3
- 7 MTL 1 CHI 2
- 8 MTL 1 CHI 2
- 9 MTL 2 CHI 4
- 10 MTL 1 CHI 4
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Canadiens by 0.5, 58% to win. The Canadiens won by 3: the pick was right. The final margin was 2.5 goals from ours; 26% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Canadiens win | 58.3% |
| Blackhawks win | 41.7% |
| Middle 50%: Canadiens by 3 to Blackhawks by 1 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Canadiens by 4 to Blackhawks by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Canadiens by 5 to Blackhawks by 4 | 95% |
| Exactly Canadiens by 1 | 21.6% |
| Exactly Blackhawks by 1 | 19.0% |
| Exactly Canadiens by 3 | 14.2% |
| Exactly Canadiens by 2 | 11.7% |
| Exactly Blackhawks by 3 | 9.1% |
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 Fri, Oct 23, 2:41 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
Canadiens win 54% of them, Blackhawks 46%. The line is what actually happened: Canadiens by 3.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Canadiens by 3+ | 20.9% |
| Canadiens by 2 | 11.2% |
| Canadiens by 1 | 22.2% |
| Blackhawks by 1 | 23.3% |
| Blackhawks by 2 | 9.8% |
| Blackhawks by 3+ | 12.6% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Canadiens | 44 | 3 | 2.39 | +0.61 |
 Blackhawks | 28 | 1 | 1.98 | −0.98 |
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 15:11 | Elbowing on the Blackhawks (Connor Bedard): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% MTL |
| P1 7:50 | Elbowing on the Canadiens (Juraj Slafkovský): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CHI |
| P1 0:16 | Tripping on the Canadiens (Alex Newhook): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CHI |
| P2 16:01 | Tripping on the Canadiens (Zachary Bolduc): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% CHI |
| P2 13:24 | High sticking on the Canadiens (Chris Kreider): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% CHI |
| P2 8:36 | Hooking on the Blackhawks (Patrick Kane): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% MTL |
| P3 6:14 | Hooking on the Canadiens (Juraj Slafkovský): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% CHI |
| P3 5:52 | Interference on the Blackhawks (Teuvo Teravainen): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% MTL |
| P3 0:00 | Too many men on the ice on the Canadiens (MTL): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% CHI |
When it happened
Blackhawks’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 71%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 15:37 | Connor Bedard scored on a snap shot from 39 feetShooting · 6% chance | +15% CHI | – |
| 2 | P1 2:31 | Jake Evans scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 14% chance | +15% MTL | – |
| 3 | P1 0:16 | Tripping on the Canadiens (Alex Newhook): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% CHI | – |
| 4 | P2 16:01 | Tripping on the Canadiens (Zachary Bolduc): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% CHI | – |
| 5 | P2 13:24 | High sticking on the Canadiens (Chris Kreider): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% CHI | – |
| 6 | P2 12:15 | Jake Evans scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 8% chance | +19% MTL | – |
| 7 | P2 8:36 | Hooking on the Blackhawks (Patrick Kane): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% MTL | – |
| 8 | P2 1:34 | Kaiden Guhle scored on a wrist shot from 68 feetShooting · 1% chance | +16% MTL | – |
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
Canadiens 81% · Blackhawks 19%
- Final margin
- Canadiens by 3
- Luck in goals
- 1.7 for the Canadiens
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Canadiens by 1.3
- Replay with same day's form
- Canadiens 54% · Blackhawks 46% 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.
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