luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 1, 2025 · SO

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

Capitals at Sabres, Nov 1, 2025: who deserved to win?

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

The biggest swing (SO): the Sabres won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Sabres.

Final (SO)

Washington Capitals 3
Buffalo Sabres 4

November 1, 2025 · KeyBank Center

Luck index +40 Sabres lucky · −40 Capitals

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. Capitals win 4, Sabres win 6.

  1. 1 WSH 6 BUF 3
  2. 2 WSH 4 BUF 2
  3. 3 WSH 5 BUF 4
  4. 4 WSH 2 BUF 1
  5. 5 WSH 3 BUF 4
  6. 6 WSH 3 BUF 4
  7. 7 WSH 3 BUF 4
  8. 8 WSH 0 BUF 2
  9. 9 WSH 1 BUF 4
  10. 10 WSH 0 BUF 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 replays ended

Capitals win 40% of them, Sabres 60%. The line is what actually happened: Sabres by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Capitals by 3+11.9%
Capitals by 28.8%
Capitals by 119.4%
Sabres by 121.6%
Sabres by 212.1%
Sabres by 3+26.3%

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 +0.5 goals to the Sabres: the final margin was Sabres by 1, without the luck Sabres by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Capitals4332.29+0.71
Sabres3932.99+0.01

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 15:21 Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Capitals (Tom Wilson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P2 13:40 Interference on the Sabres (Alex Tuch): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P2 5:44 Hooking on the Capitals (Ryan Leonard): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P3 16:49 Holding on the Capitals (Declan Chisholm): 2 minutes on the power play +6% BUF
P3 13:51 Tripping on the Sabres (Peyton Krebs): 2 minutes on the power play +7% WSH
P3 11:34 Tripping on the Sabres (Beck Malenstyn): 2 minutes on the power play +7% WSH
P3 3:12 Holding on the Sabres (Alex Tuch): 2 minutes on the power play +9% WSH

When it happened

Sabres’ chance of winning

As low as 23% 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 Sabres were ahead in it, below while the Capitals were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:53 Dylan Strome scored on a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 21% chance +13% WSH –
2 P1 17:45 Aliaksei Protas scored on a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 12% chance +13% WSH –
3 P1 17:30 Tage Thompson scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 17% chance +12% BUF –
4 P1 9:58 Alex Tuch scored on a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% BUF –
5 P1 1:15 Isak Rosen scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 6% chance +17% BUF –
6 P2 0:43 Sonny Milano scored on a tip from 20 feetShooting · 9% chance +22% WSH –
7 P3 3:12 Holding on the Sabres (Alex Tuch): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +9% WSH –
8 SO The Sabres won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% 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

Capitals 38% · Sabres 62%

Final margin
Sabres by 1
Luck in goals
0.5 for the Sabres
Luck-adjusted margin
Sabres by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Capitals 40% · Sabres 60% 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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