2026-27 regular season · October 31, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Penguins at Canadiens, Oct 31, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Canadiens beat the Penguins 5–4, 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: shooting alone was worth 35 points of win probability to the Canadiens.
The biggest swing (P1, 17:52 left): Erik Karlsson scored on a slap shot from 49 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Penguins.
Final
 Pittsburgh Penguins | 4 |
|---|---|
 Montreal Canadiens | 5 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +48 Canadiens lucky · −48 Penguins
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. Penguins win 5, Canadiens win 5.
- 1 PIT 7 MTL 3
- 2 PIT 5 MTL 2
- 3 PIT 3 MTL 1
- 4 PIT 4 MTL 3
- 5 PIT 3 MTL 2
- 6 PIT 3 MTL 4
- 7 PIT 2 MTL 3
- 8 PIT 3 MTL 5
- 9 PIT 0 MTL 3
- 10 PIT 0 MTL 4
Our prediction before puck drop
We had it even, a coin flip. The Canadiens won by 1. The final margin was 1.0 goal from ours; 79% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Penguins win | 49.8% |
| Canadiens win | 50.2% |
| Middle 50%: Penguins by 2 to Canadiens by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Penguins by 4 to Canadiens by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Penguins by 5 to Canadiens by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Canadiens by 1 | 20.9% |
| Exactly Penguins by 1 | 20.3% |
| Exactly Canadiens by 3 | 11.7% |
| Exactly Penguins by 3 | 11.5% |
| Exactly Penguins by 2 | 10.2% |
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 31, 11:57 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 3,999.8 replays ended
Penguins win 48% of them, Canadiens 52%. The line is what actually happened: Canadiens by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Penguins by 3+ | 16.6% |
| Penguins by 2 | 9.7% |
| Penguins by 1 | 21.5% |
| Canadiens by 1 | 21.9% |
| Canadiens by 2 | 11.4% |
| Canadiens by 3+ | 19.0% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Penguins | 48 | 4 | 3.59 | +0.41 |
 Canadiens | 35 | 5 | 2.61 | +2.39 |
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 18:39 | Tripping on the Canadiens (Noah Dobson): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% PIT |
| P1 7:01 | Tripping on the Penguins (Evgeni Malkin): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% MTL |
| P2 10:36 | Tripping on the Canadiens (Oliver Kapanen): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% PIT |
| P2 2:48 | Tripping on the Penguins (Sidney Crosby): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% MTL |
| P3 12:52 | Interference on the Penguins (Kaedan Korczak): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% MTL |
| P3 7:59 | Cross checking on the Canadiens (Florian Xhekaj): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% PIT |
When it happened
Canadiens’ chance of winning
As low as 38% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 17:52 | Erik Karlsson scored on a slap shot from 49 feetShooting · 4% chance | +15% PIT | – |
| 2 | P1 17:19 | Oliver Kapanen scored on a snap shot from 31 feetShooting · 5% chance | +15% MTL | – |
| 3 | P1 16:55 | Josh Anderson scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 7% chance | +14% MTL | – |
| 4 | P1 12:32 | Tommy Novak scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 11% chance | +14% PIT | – |
| 5 | P2 18:06 | Alexandre Texier scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 22% chance | +15% MTL | – |
| 6 | P2 17:39 | Chris Kreider scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 6% chance | +13% MTL | – |
| 7 | P2 16:15 | Rickard Rakell scored on a snap shot from 36 feetShooting · 8% chance | +13% PIT | – |
| 8 | P2 6:54 | Josh Anderson scored on a tip from 21 feetShooting · 8% chance | +14% 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
Penguins 65% · Canadiens 35%
- Final margin
- Canadiens by 1
- Luck in goals
- 1.5 for the Canadiens
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Penguins by 0.5
- Replay with same day's form
- Penguins 48% · Canadiens 52% 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 5, 2026-27
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