luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 26, 2025

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

Sabres at Penguins, Nov 26, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Penguins beat the Sabres 4–2, but the replays lean toward the Sabres: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 35 points of win probability to the Penguins.

The biggest swing (P3, 12:09 left): Bryan Rust scored on a wrist shot from 26 feet, worth 28 points of win probability to the Penguins.

Final

Buffalo Sabres 2
Pittsburgh Penguins 4

November 26, 2025 · PPG Paints Arena

Luck index +61 Penguins very lucky · −61 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 6, Penguins win 4.

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

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

Sabres win 61% of them, Penguins 39%. The line is what actually happened: Penguins by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sabres by 3+26.4%
Sabres by 212.8%
Sabres by 121.9%
Penguins by 122.5%
Penguins by 27.1%
Penguins by 3+9.2%

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 +2.3 goals to the Penguins: the final margin was Penguins by 2, without the luck Sabres by 0.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sabres4923.36−1.36
Penguins2931.56+1.44

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 11:03 Tripping on the Sabres (Conor Timmins): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT

When it happened

Penguins’ 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 Penguins were ahead in it, below while the Sabres were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 2:51 Mathew Dumba scored on a wrist shot from 40 feetShooting · 3% chance +17% PIT –
2 P3 12:40 Jason Zucker scored on a tip from 11 feetShooting · 8% chance +27% BUF –
3 P3 12:09 Bryan Rust scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 6% chance +28% PIT –
4 P3 7:26 Kevin Hayes scored on a tip from 18 feetShooting · 8% chance +11% PIT –
5 P3 4:18 Jack Quinn scored on a wrist shot from 22 feetShooting · 12% chance +8% BUF –
6 P3 1:11 Jason Zucker’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 13% chance +5% PIT –
7 P3 1:06 Jack Quinn missed the net with a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 13% chance +6% PIT –
8 P3 1:05 Alex Tuch’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance +10% PIT –

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 51% · Penguins 49%

Final margin
Penguins by 2
Luck in goals
2.3 for the Penguins
Luck-adjusted margin
Sabres by 0.3
Replay with same day's form
Sabres 61% · Penguins 39% 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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