luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 20, 2025

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

Sabres at Canadiens, Oct 20, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Canadiens beat the Sabres 4–2, but the replays lean toward the Sabres: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 44 points of win probability to the Canadiens.

The biggest swing (P3, 17:03 left): Juraj Slafkovský scored on a snap shot from 7 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Canadiens.

Final

Buffalo Sabres 2
Montreal Canadiens 4

October 20, 2025 · Centre Bell

Luck index +65 Canadiens very lucky · −65 Sabres

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. Sabres win 6, Canadiens win 4.

  1. 1 BUF 7 MTL 1
  2. 2 BUF 7 MTL 3
  3. 3 BUF 5 MTL 2
  4. 4 BUF 5 MTL 2
  5. 5 BUF 4 MTL 3
  6. 6 BUF 4 MTL 3
  7. 7 BUF 5 MTL 6
  8. 8 BUF 3 MTL 4
  9. 9 BUF 2 MTL 4
  10. 10 BUF 2 MTL 5

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 4,000.2 replays ended

Sabres win 65% of them, Canadiens 35%. The line is what actually happened: Canadiens by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sabres by 3+37.1%
Sabres by 29.9%
Sabres by 117.6%
Canadiens by 117.2%
Canadiens by 27.1%
Canadiens by 3+11.2%

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 +1.8 goals to the Canadiens: the final margin was Canadiens by 2, without the luck Canadiens by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sabres5124.37−2.37
Canadiens4532.89+0.11

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
P2 9:11 Slashing on the Canadiens (Brendan Gallagher): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BUF
P3 11:48 Tripping on the Sabres (Zach Benson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MTL

When it happened

Canadiens’ chance of winning

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 Canadiens were ahead in it, below while the Sabres were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:31 Oliver Kapanen scored on a backhand shot from 9 feetShooting · 11% chance +15% MTL –
2 P2 13:09 Jiri Kulich scored on a backhand shot from 14 feetShooting · 8% chance +18% BUF –
3 P2 8:53 Tage Thompson’s snap shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 30% chance +7% MTL –
4 P3 17:03 Juraj Slafkovský scored on a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 22% chance +21% MTL –
5 P3 16:24 Josh Doan’s snap shot from 9 feet was savedShooting · 20% chance +5% MTL –
6 P3 11:48 Tripping on the Sabres (Zach Benson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% MTL –
7 P3 8:22 Lane Hutson scored on a wrist shot from 29 feetShooting · 8% chance +11% MTL –
8 P3 7:30 Tyson Kozak scored on a snap shot from 5 feetShooting · 27% chance +8% BUF –

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

Sabres 44% · Canadiens 56%

Final margin
Canadiens by 2
Luck in goals
1.8 for the Canadiens
Luck-adjusted margin
Canadiens by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Sabres 65% · Canadiens 35% 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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