luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 6, 2025

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

Blues at Sabres, Nov 6, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Blues beat the Sabres 3–0, but the replays lean toward the Sabres: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 32 points of win probability to the Blues.

The biggest swing (P2, 17:18 left): Nick Bjugstad scored on a wrist shot from 38 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Blues.

Final

St. Louis Blues 3
Buffalo Sabres 0

November 6, 2025 · KeyBank Center

Luck index +68 Blues very lucky · −68 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. Blues win 3, Sabres win 7.

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

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 3,999.9 replays ended

Blues win 32% of them, Sabres 68%. The line is what actually happened: Blues by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blues by 3+5.9%
Blues by 25.9%
Blues by 120.1%
Sabres by 122.3%
Sabres by 214.3%
Sabres by 3+31.5%

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 +3.0 goals to the Blues: the final margin was Blues by 3, without the luck even. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blues2521.36+0.64
Sabres4102.75−2.75

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 8:43 Hooking on the Blues (Cam Fowler): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P2 16:22 Tripping on the Sabres (Alex Tuch): 2 minutes on the power play +3% STL
P2 6:08 Holding on the Blues (Jimmy Snuggerud): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P3 17:56 Holding on the Blues (Alexandre Texier): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P3 3:17 Tripping on the Sabres (Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen): 2 minutes on the power play +1% STL

When it happened

Sabres’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Blues were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 8:43 Hooking on the Blues (Cam Fowler): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% BUF –
2 P1 7:44 Josh Doan’s wrist shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 20% chance +3% STL –
3 P1 7:22 Mathieu Joseph scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 14% chance +15% STL –
4 P2 17:18 Nick Bjugstad scored on a wrist shot from 38 feetShooting · 4% chance +15% STL –
5 P2 16:22 Tripping on the Sabres (Alex Tuch): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% STL –
6 P2 6:08 Holding on the Blues (Jimmy Snuggerud): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% BUF –
7 P3 19:24 Josh Doan’s slap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 26% chance +4% STL –
8 P3 19:09 Isak Rosen’s wrist shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +3% STL –

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

Blues 53% · Sabres 47%

Final margin
Blues by 3
Luck in goals
3.0 for the Blues
Luck-adjusted margin
even
Replay with same day's form
Blues 32% · Sabres 68% 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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