luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 30, 2025 · OT

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

Sabres at Bruins, Oct 30, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Bruins beat the Sabres 4–3, a result the replays rarely give: with the way both teams actually played, the Sabres win 8 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Bruins.

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

Final (OT)

Buffalo Sabres 3
Boston Bruins 4

October 30, 2025 · TD Garden

Luck index +80 Bruins very lucky · −80 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 8, Bruins win 2.

  1. 1 BUF 8 BOS 0
  2. 2 BUF 7 BOS 1
  3. 3 BUF 5 BOS 0
  4. 4 BUF 4 BOS 0
  5. 5 BUF 3 BOS 0
  6. 6 BUF 6 BOS 3
  7. 7 BUF 6 BOS 4
  8. 8 BUF 3 BOS 2
  9. 9 BUF 5 BOS 6
  10. 10 BUF 2 BOS 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 80% of them, Bruins 20%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sabres by 3+60.6%
Sabres by 29.1%
Sabres by 110.6%
Bruins by 112.3%
Bruins by 23.6%
Bruins by 3+3.9%

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 +3.6 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Bruins by 1, without the luck Sabres by 2.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sabres6135.51−2.51
Bruins3632.02+0.98

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 13:51 Slashing on the Sabres (Josh Dunne): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 8:36 Tripping on the Sabres (Rasmus Dahlin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 1:58 Hooking on the Bruins (Marat Khusnutdinov): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P2 19:15 Hooking on the Bruins (David Pastrnak): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P2 7:20 Hooking on the Sabres (Michael Kesselring): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BOS
P2 5:16 Hooking on the Bruins (Pavel Zacha): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P2 0:00 Cross checking on the Bruins (Pavel Zacha): 2 minutes on the power play +2% BUF
P3 5:35 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Bruins (BOS): 2 minutes on the power play +9% BUF
P3 1:17 Tripping on the Sabres (Jordan Greenway): 2 minutes on the power play +10% BOS

When it happened

Bruins’ 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 Bruins were ahead in it, below while the Sabres were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 6:53 Morgan Geekie scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 19% chance +14% BOS –
2 P1 4:53 David Pastrnak scored on a wrist shot from 27 feetShooting · 8% chance +13% BOS –
3 P2 3:59 Rasmus Dahlin scored on a slap shot from 48 feetShooting · 5% chance +14% BUF –
4 P2 0:21 Mark Kastelic scored on a poke shot from 3 feetShooting · 29% chance +10% BOS –
5 P3 13:00 Josh Doan scored on a bat shot from 5 feetShooting · 19% chance +11% BUF –
6 P3 5:35 Alex Tuch scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 14% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Bruins (BOS): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +40% BUF –
7 P3 1:17 Tripping on the Sabres (Jordan Greenway): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +10% BOS –
8 OT The Bruins won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% BOS –

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 91% · Bruins 9%

Final margin
Bruins by 1
Luck in goals
3.6 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Sabres by 2.6
Replay with same day's form
Sabres 80% · Bruins 20% 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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