luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 25, 2025 · OT

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

Sabres at Maple Leafs, Oct 25, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Maple Leafs beat the Sabres 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Maple Leafs win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

The biggest swing (OT): the Maple Leafs won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Maple Leafs.

Final (OT)

Buffalo Sabres 3
Toronto Maple Leafs 4

October 25, 2025 · Scotiabank Arena

Luck index +52 Maple Leafs lucky · −52 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 5, Maple Leafs win 5.

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

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

Sabres win 52% of them, Maple Leafs 48%. The line is what actually happened: Maple Leafs by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sabres by 3+18.0%
Sabres by 210.4%
Sabres by 123.6%
Maple Leafs by 123.3%
Maple Leafs by 211.0%
Maple Leafs by 3+13.7%

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 +1.1 goals to the Maple Leafs: the final margin was Maple Leafs by 1, without the luck Sabres by 0.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sabres3432.28+0.72
Maple Leafs3532.15+0.85

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 17:28 Interference on the Sabres (Josh Dunne): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TOR
P1 12:55 High sticking on the Maple Leafs (Jake McCabe): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 9:51 Cross checking on the Maple Leafs (Oliver Ekman-Larsson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 5:38 Instigator on the Sabres (Alex Tuch): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TOR
P2 15:39 Cross checking on the Sabres (Mattias Samuelsson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TOR
P2 2:48 Interference on the Maple Leafs (Oliver Ekman-Larsson): 2 minutes on the power play +6% BUF
P3 13:35 Tripping on the Maple Leafs (Simon Benoit): 2 minutes on the power play +7% BUF

When it happened

Maple Leafs’ chance of winning

As low as 19% 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 Maple Leafs were ahead in it, below while the Sabres were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 6:20 Tage Thompson scored on a wrist shot from 35 feetShooting · 5% chance +17% BUF –
2 P1 1:27 Nicholas Robertson scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 13% chance +16% TOR –
3 P2 18:01 Matias Maccelli scored on a tip from 5 feetShooting · 5% chance +18% TOR –
4 P2 5:37 Bowen Byram scored on a wrist shot from 51 feetShooting · 2% chance +22% BUF –
5 P3 13:35 Tripping on the Maple Leafs (Simon Benoit): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% BUF –
6 P3 12:54 Tage Thompson scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 21% chance +24% BUF –
7 P3 6:50 Dakota Joshua scored on a wrist shot from 35 feetShooting · 5% chance +35% TOR –
8 OT The Maple Leafs won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% TOR –

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 51% · Maple Leafs 49%

Final margin
Maple Leafs by 1
Luck in goals
1.1 for the Maple Leafs
Luck-adjusted margin
Sabres by 0.1
Replay with same day's form
Sabres 52% · Maple Leafs 48% 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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