luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 28, 2025 · OT

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

Blue Jackets at Sabres, Oct 28, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Blue Jackets beat the Sabres 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blue Jackets win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Blue Jackets won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

Final (OT)

Columbus Blue Jackets 4
Buffalo Sabres 3

October 28, 2025 · KeyBank Center

Luck index +44 Blue Jackets lucky · −44 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. Blue Jackets win 6, Sabres win 4.

  1. 1 CBJ 5 BUF 0
  2. 2 CBJ 4 BUF 1
  3. 3 CBJ 4 BUF 1
  4. 4 CBJ 4 BUF 2
  5. 5 CBJ 3 BUF 2
  6. 6 CBJ 3 BUF 2
  7. 7 CBJ 3 BUF 4
  8. 8 CBJ 2 BUF 3
  9. 9 CBJ 2 BUF 4
  10. 10 CBJ 1 BUF 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

Blue Jackets win 56% of them, Sabres 44%. The line is what actually happened: Blue Jackets by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blue Jackets by 3+26.1%
Blue Jackets by 29.9%
Blue Jackets by 120.0%
Sabres by 121.2%
Sabres by 28.2%
Sabres by 3+14.5%

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 +0.6 goals to the Blue Jackets: the final margin was Blue Jackets by 1, without the luck Blue Jackets by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blue Jackets5433.29−0.29
Sabres4932.70+0.30

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 1:33 Roughing on the Blue Jackets (Damon Severson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P2 0:40 Interference on the Sabres (Alex Tuch): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CBJ
P2 0:00 Roughing on the Blue Jackets (Kirill Marchenko): 2 minutes on the power play +6% BUF

When it happened

Sabres’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 86%. 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 Sabres were ahead in it, below while the Blue Jackets were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:51 Egor Chinakhov scored on a backhand shot from 6 feetShooting · 12% chance +15% CBJ –
2 P2 8:21 Josh Doan scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 14% chance +19% BUF –
3 P2 5:48 Ryan McLeod scored on a wrist shot from 48 feetShooting · 1% chance +22% BUF –
4 P2 0:16 Zach Werenski scored on a slap shot from 58 feetShooting · 3% chance +24% CBJ –
5 P3 17:20 Josh Dunne scored on a poke shot from 8 feetShooting · 10% chance +24% BUF –
6 P3 12:29 Dmitri Voronkov’s slap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 28% chance +8% BUF –
7 P3 6:05 Miles Wood scored on a tip from 8 feetShooting · 9% chance +33% CBJ –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Blue Jackets won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% CBJ –

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

Blue Jackets 59% · Sabres 41%

Final margin
Blue Jackets by 1
Luck in goals
0.6 for the Blue Jackets
Luck-adjusted margin
Blue Jackets by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Blue Jackets 56% · Sabres 44% 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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