luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 19, 2025

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

Flames at Sabres, Nov 19, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Flames beat the Sabres 6–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Flames win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 35 points of win probability to the Flames.

The biggest swing (P3, 17:58 left): Morgan Frost scored on a wrist shot from 7 feet, worth 23 points of win probability to the Flames.

Final

Calgary Flames 6
Buffalo Sabres 2

November 19, 2025 · KeyBank Center

Luck index +44 Flames 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. Flames win 6, Sabres win 4.

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

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

Flames win 56% of them, Sabres 44%. The line is what actually happened: Flames by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flames by 3+22.7%
Flames by 210.9%
Flames by 122.5%
Sabres by 122.7%
Sabres by 29.0%
Sabres by 3+12.2%

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 +2.7 goals to the Flames: the final margin was Flames by 4, without the luck Flames by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flames4862.54+3.46
Sabres4322.11−0.11

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 17:21 Hooking on the Flames (Morgan Frost): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 1:43 Interference on the Sabres (Josh Dunne): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CGY
P2 15:21 Interference on the Flames (Joel Hanley): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P2 8:21 Holding the stick on the Flames (Blake Coleman): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF

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 Flames were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:02 Rasmus Andersson scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% CGY –
2 P1 7:56 Joel Farabee scored on a tip from 8 feetShooting · 9% chance +14% CGY –
3 P2 9:39 Mattias Samuelsson scored on a snap shot from 33 feetShooting · 6% chance +15% BUF –
4 P2 8:21 Holding the stick on the Flames (Blake Coleman): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% BUF –
5 P2 4:03 Tage Thompson scored on a slap shot from 53 feetShooting · 3% chance +23% BUF –
6 P2 0:35 Yegor Sharangovich’s wrist shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 18% chance +5% BUF –
7 P3 17:58 Morgan Frost scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 13% chance +23% CGY –
8 P3 12:26 Mikael Backlund scored on a snap shot from 13 feetShooting · 17% chance +13% CGY –

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

Flames 75% · Sabres 25%

Final margin
Flames by 4
Luck in goals
2.7 for the Flames
Luck-adjusted margin
Flames by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Flames 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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