luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 8, 2025

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

Sabres at Flames, Dec 8, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Flames beat the Sabres 7–4, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Flames win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 32 points of win probability to the Flames.

The biggest swing (P1, 10:06 left): Yegor Sharangovich scored on a deflected shot from 6 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Flames.

Final

Buffalo Sabres 4
Calgary Flames 7

December 8, 2025 · Scotiabank Saddledome

Luck index +53 Flames lucky · −53 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 5, Flames win 5.

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

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 53% of them, Flames 47%. The line is what actually happened: Flames by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sabres by 3+22.9%
Sabres by 211.1%
Sabres by 119.4%
Flames by 120.2%
Flames by 29.7%
Flames by 3+16.7%

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 +2.4 goals to the Flames: the final margin was Flames by 3, without the luck Flames by 0.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sabres4843.51+0.49
Flames3752.79+2.21

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 18:34 Tripping on the Flames (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 9:20 Interference on the Flames (Adam Klapka): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 8:39 Interference on the Sabres (Josh Doan): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P1 7:10 Tripping on the Sabres (Jack Quinn): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P2 17:32 Tripping on the Flames (Morgan Frost): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P2 14:58 Interference on the Sabres (Beck Malenstyn): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P2 13:06 Tripping on the Sabres (Jordan Greenway): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P2 12:15 A Sabres goal came off the board on review (off side) +11% CGY
P2 3:16 High sticking on the Sabres (Jason Zucker): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P2 2:46 High sticking on the Flames (Matt Coronato): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P2 0:46 Slashing on the Flames (Mikael Backlund): 2 minutes on the power play +2% BUF
P3 2:58 Roughing on the Flames (Kevin Bahl): 2 minutes on the power play +1% BUF

When it happened

Flames’ 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 Flames were ahead in it, below while the Sabres were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 10:06 Yegor Sharangovich scored on a deflected shot from 6 feetShooting · 15% chance +14% CGY –
2 P1 6:38 Rasmus Andersson scored on a slap shot from 42 feetShooting · 7% chance +13% CGY –
3 P2 15:36 Tage Thompson scored on a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 13% chance +12% BUF –
4 P2 12:55 Jonathan Huberdeau scored on a tip from 4 feetShooting · 19% chance +12% CGY –
5 P2 6:17 Owen Power scored on a wrist shot from 34 feetShooting · 5% chance +14% BUF –
6 P2 5:46 Nazem Kadri scored on a tip from 5 feetShooting · 11% chance +13% CGY –
7 P2 3:28 Rasmus Dahlin scored on a tip from 5 feetShooting · 14% chance +13% BUF –
8 P2 2:33 Yan Kuznetsov scored on a poke shot from 6 feetShooting · 16% 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

Sabres 36% · Flames 64%

Final margin
Flames by 3
Luck in goals
2.4 for the Flames
Luck-adjusted margin
Flames by 0.6
Replay with same day's form
Sabres 53% · Flames 47% 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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