luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 5, 2025

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

Sabres at Jets, Dec 5, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Jets beat the Sabres 4–1, 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 37 points of win probability to the Jets.

The biggest swing (P2, 17:38 left): Tanner Pearson scored on a wrist shot from 26 feet, worth 17 points of win probability to the Jets.

Final

Buffalo Sabres 1
Winnipeg Jets 4

December 5, 2025 · Canada Life Centre

Luck index +62 Jets very lucky · −62 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, Jets win 4.

  1. 1 BUF 5 WPG 0
  2. 2 BUF 5 WPG 2
  3. 3 BUF 5 WPG 2
  4. 4 BUF 4 WPG 2
  5. 5 BUF 4 WPG 3
  6. 6 BUF 5 WPG 4
  7. 7 BUF 2 WPG 3
  8. 8 BUF 5 WPG 6
  9. 9 BUF 4 WPG 6
  10. 10 BUF 3 WPG 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 4,000.1 replays ended

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

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sabres by 3+30.0%
Sabres by 211.4%
Sabres by 120.6%
Jets by 119.2%
Jets by 28.3%
Jets by 3+10.6%

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 +3.4 goals to the Jets: the final margin was Jets by 3, without the luck Sabres by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sabres5614.44−3.44
Jets3432.20+0.80

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 12:20 Tripping on the Jets (Morgan Barron): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P1 5:35 Tripping on the Jets (Jonathan Toews): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 3:42 Hooking on the Sabres (Bowen Byram): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WPG

When it happened

Jets’ 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 Jets were ahead in it, below while the Sabres were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:36 Kyle Connor scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 16% chance +13% WPG –
2 P1 10:32 Josh Doan’s wrist shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 24% chance +4% WPG –
3 P1 5:17 Jason Zucker’s wrist shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 26% chance +5% WPG –
4 P1 5:16 Jason Zucker scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 26% chance +13% BUF –
5 P1 3:42 Hooking on the Sabres (Bowen Byram): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% WPG –
6 P2 17:38 Tanner Pearson scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 9% chance +17% WPG –
7 P2 13:06 Alex Tuch’s backhand shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 24% chance +5% WPG –
8 P2 1:18 Cole Koepke scored on a backhand shot from 9 feetShooting · 10% chance +13% WPG –

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 56% · Jets 44%

Final margin
Jets by 3
Luck in goals
3.4 for the Jets
Luck-adjusted margin
Sabres by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Sabres 62% · Jets 38% 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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