MTL @ BUF
2026-01-15 · final 3–5 · what happened, next to what the engine said before puck drop
What happened
MTL attacks the left net, BUF the right — every unblocked attempt the game produced: × goals, • on net, ◦ missed (hover a marker for the shooter and its xG). To compare against the pregame call, switch the Surface to the engine's predicted-xG map — the shots land on top of where the engine expected the game to be played.
| MTL | BUF | |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Goals | 4 |
| 2.61 | Expected goals (xG) | 2.49 |
| 1.95 | 5v5 xG | 1.54 |
| 0.46 | Power-play xG | 0.69 |
| 23 | Shots on goal | 26 |
| 43 | Shot attempts | 54 |
Counts come from the shot table behind the maps: empty-net attempts and the shootout are excluded, so the goals row can trail the official final by an empty-netter or the shootout's deciding goal.
Goals
| Team | Scorer | Period | Strength | xG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTL | Cole Caufield | 1 | 5v5 | 0.18 |
| MTL | Ivan Demidov | 1 | PP | 0.19 |
| BUF | Tage Thompson | 1 | PP | 0.12 |
| BUF | Josh Doan | 1 | PP | 0.11 |
| MTL | Nick Suzuki | 2 | PP | 0.13 |
| BUF | Alex Tuch | 2 | 5v5 | 0.11 |
| BUF | Tage Thompson | 3 | 5v5 | 0.12 |
The prediction, scored
Before puck drop the engine made BUF a 54.6% favorite, expecting a 2.95–3.22 game — BUF won 3–5, so the call landed. Every number in this section was issued before the game and is never re-graded.
| pred. xG | actual xG | pred. 5v5 | actual 5v5 | pred. ST | actual PP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTL | 2.95 | 2.61 | 2.01 | 1.95 | 0.72 | 0.46 |
| BUF | 3.22 | 2.49 | 2.25 | 1.54 | 0.78 | 0.69 |
Predicted 5v5 / special-teams portions come from the map's strength splits (one shared scale per team pins the all-strengths total to its expected goals), so they don't sum exactly — the remainder is 4v4, 3v3, and other mixed states. The actual PP column is power-play xG only, the same bucket the map's special-teams view draws.
The pregame score grid
The likeliest finals the engine saw before the game, with what actually happened marked — ■ MTL · ■ BUF.
| Likeliest finals (MTL–BUF) | probability | |
|---|---|---|
| 2–3 | 5.1% | |
| 3–3 | 5.0% | tied after regulation — OT/SO decides |
| 2–2 | 4.7% | tied after regulation — OT/SO decides |
| 3–2 | 4.6% | |
| 2–4 | 4.1% | |
| 3–5 | 2.6% | what happened |
Scoreline odds treat the two teams' totals as independent — the engine's known simplification (it slightly under-counts regulation ties; the correlation term is registered v1.1 work). The OT/SO layer is a separate fitted model and is already inside the headline win probability.
The pregame read
The engine made BUF a 54.6% favorite — BUF controls 52.2% of the predicted xG. Of MTL's 2.95 expected goals, 2.01 should come at 5v5 and 0.72 on the power play; BUF projects 2.25 at 5v5 and 0.78 on the power play. The logistic challenger put the home side at 53.7%, Elo at 59.8%.
Tale of the tape
How each team fares on its own, season to date: per-game xG rates with league rank (of 32). Rank 1 is best on every row — orange ranks sit in the top third of the league, gray in the bottom third.
| MTL | BUF | |
|---|---|---|
| 3.14 (6th) | Offense xG for / game |
2.88 (18th) |
| 3.12 (29th) | Defense xG against / game |
2.89 (15th) |
| 0.75 (7th) | Power play PP xG / game |
0.63 (23rd) |
| 0.83 (31st) | Penalty kill PP xG conceded / game |
0.72 (24th) |
Season-to-date form as of the site's latest build, shown for context — the ratings the engine actually used were its own as-of-game-day state. Replay this matchup in the lab →