luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 3, 2025

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

Sabres at Flyers, Dec 3, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Flyers beat the Sabres 5–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 11:34 left): Travis Konecny scored on a snap shot from 50 feet, worth 20 points of win probability to the Flyers.

Final

Buffalo Sabres 2
Philadelphia Flyers 5

December 3, 2025 · Xfinity Mobile Arena

Luck index +38 Flyers lucky · −38 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 4, Flyers win 6.

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

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 38% of them, Flyers 62%. The line is what actually happened: Flyers by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sabres by 3+15.8%
Sabres by 26.3%
Sabres by 116.0%
Flyers by 115.0%
Flyers by 28.7%
Flyers by 3+38.3%

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 +1.7 goals to the Flyers: the final margin was Flyers by 3, without the luck Flyers by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sabres4924.26−2.26
Flyers4754.97+0.03

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 16:40 Delaying game puck over glass on the Flyers (Cam York): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 15:22 Interference on the Flyers (Matvei Michkov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 14:30 Hooking on the Sabres (Tage Thompson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P1 13:14 Cross checking on the Sabres (Conor Timmins): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P1 11:34 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Sabres (BUF): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P1 2:41 Tripping on the Flyers (Rodrigo Abols): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P1 0:20 High sticking on the Sabres (Peyton Krebs): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P2 10:36 Roughing on the Flyers (Nicolas Deslauriers): 2 minutes on the power play +1% BUF
P2 3:10 Boarding on the Sabres (Rasmus Dahlin): 5 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P3 17:14 Holding on the Flyers (Travis Sanheim): 2 minutes on the power play +1% BUF
P3 13:39 Tripping on the Flyers (Matvei Michkov): 2 minutes on the power play +1% BUF
P3 7:22 A Sabres goal came off the board on review (off side) +1% PHI

When it happened

Flyers’ chance of winning

As low as 37% 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 Flyers were ahead in it, below while the Sabres were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:52 Jason Zucker scored on a snap shot from 13 feetShooting · 25% chance +12% BUF –
2 P1 11:34 Travis Konecny scored on a snap shot from 50 feetShooting · 4% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Sabres (BUF): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +20% PHI –
3 P1 10:56 Trevor Zegras scored on a snap shot from 37 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% PHI –
4 P1 10:35 Bobby Brink scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 12% chance +12% PHI –
5 P2 18:32 Bobby Brink’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 24% chanceBobby Brink’s snap shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 35% chance +5% BUF –
6 P2 18:15 Noah Cates scored on a snap shot from 5 feetShooting · 31% chance +6% PHI –
7 P2 8:12 Bowen Byram scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 8% chance +7% BUF –
8 P2 7:17 Owen Tippett scored on a bat shot from 5 feetShooting · 22% chance +6% PHI –

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 27% · Flyers 73%

Final margin
Flyers by 3
Luck in goals
1.7 for the Flyers
Luck-adjusted margin
Flyers by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Sabres 38% · Flyers 62% 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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