luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 29, 2026

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

Canucks at Sharks, Oct 29, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Sharks beat the Canucks 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Sharks win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 20 points of win probability to the Sharks.

The biggest swing (P3, 9:10 left): Mason Marchment scored on a wrist shot from 31 feet, worth 32 points of win probability to the Sharks.

Final

Vancouver Canucks 2
San Jose Sharks 3

October 29, 2026 · SAP Center at San Jose

Our prediction before puck drop: Sharks by 0.6

Luck index +41 Sharks lucky · −41 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 4, Sharks win 6.

  1. 1 VAN 4 SJS 1
  2. 2 VAN 4 SJS 2
  3. 3 VAN 3 SJS 2
  4. 4 VAN 3 SJS 2
  5. 5 VAN 1 SJS 2
  6. 6 VAN 2 SJS 3
  7. 7 VAN 3 SJS 5
  8. 8 VAN 0 SJS 3
  9. 9 VAN 1 SJS 4
  10. 10 VAN 0 SJS 4

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Sharks by 0.6, 59% to win. The Sharks won by 1: the pick was right. The final margin was 0.4 goals from ours; 78% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Canucks win40.7%
Sharks win59.3%
Middle 50%: Canucks by 1 to Sharks by 350%
Middle 90%: Canucks by 4 to Sharks by 490%
Middle 95%: Canucks by 4 to Sharks by 595%
Exactly Sharks by 122.2%
Exactly Canucks by 118.3%
Exactly Sharks by 314.7%
Exactly Sharks by 211.1%
Exactly Canucks by 38.7%

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 Thu, Oct 29, 1:10 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.

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 4,000.1 replays ended

Canucks win 41% of them, Sharks 59%. The line is what actually happened: Sharks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canucks by 3+10.5%
Canucks by 28.5%
Canucks by 121.6%
Sharks by 123.1%
Sharks by 211.5%
Sharks by 3+24.7%

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 Sharks: the final margin was Sharks by 1, without the luck Sharks by 0.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canucks3522.43−0.43
Sharks3532.55+0.45

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 11:34 Holding on the Canucks (Arshdeep Bains): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P1 9:28 Slashing on the Sharks (Michael Misa): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P1 5:06 Interference on the Canucks (Jonathan Lekkerimäki): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P1 1:28 Cross checking on the Sharks (Sam Dickinson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P2 11:46 Cross checking on the Canucks (Zeev Buium): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 3:42 Tripping on the Canucks (Liam Ohgren): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P3 13:01 Interference on the Canucks (Jonathan Lekkerimäki): 2 minutes on the power play +2% SJS
P3 2:56 Cross checking on the Sharks (Michael Kesselring): 2 minutes on the power play +6% VAN

When it happened

Sharks’ chance of winning

As low as 6% and as high as 100%. 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 Sharks were ahead in it, below while the Canucks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 6:39 Drew O'Connor scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 16% chance +15% VAN –
2 P2 1:04 Liam Ohgren scored on a wrist shot from 37 feetShooting · 5% chance +16% VAN –
3 P3 12:00 Will Smith scored on a wrist shot from 39 feetShooting · 6% chance +14% SJS –
4 P3 9:21 Will Smith scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 14% chance +29% SJS –
5 P3 9:10 Mason Marchment scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 4% chance +32% SJS –
6 P3 2:56 Cross checking on the Sharks (Michael Kesselring): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% VAN –
7 P3 2:39 Jake DeBrusk missed the net with a backhand shot from 9 feetShooting · 13% chance +5% SJS –
8 P3 1:27 Brock Boeser missed the net with a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 15% chance +7% 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

Canucks 29% · Sharks 71%

Final margin
Sharks by 1
Luck in goals
0.1 for the Sharks
Luck-adjusted margin
Sharks by 0.9
Replay with same day's form
Canucks 41% · Sharks 59% 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.

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