luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 20, 2025 · SO

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

Islanders at Sabres, Dec 20, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Sabres beat the Islanders 3–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Islanders had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 10 points of win probability to the Islanders.

The biggest swing (SO): the Sabres won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Sabres.

Final (SO)

New York Islanders 2
Buffalo Sabres 3

December 20, 2025 · KeyBank Center

Luck index +33 Sabres lucky · −33 Islanders

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. Islanders win 3, Sabres win 7.

  1. 1 NYI 6 BUF 3
  2. 2 NYI 4 BUF 3
  3. 3 NYI 3 BUF 2
  4. 4 NYI 2 BUF 3
  5. 5 NYI 2 BUF 3
  6. 6 NYI 1 BUF 3
  7. 7 NYI 1 BUF 3
  8. 8 NYI 2 BUF 5
  9. 9 NYI 1 BUF 4
  10. 10 NYI 1 BUF 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 replays ended

Islanders win 33% of them, Sabres 67%. The line is what actually happened: Sabres by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Islanders by 3+8.5%
Islanders by 26.9%
Islanders by 118.1%
Sabres by 120.3%
Sabres by 213.6%
Sabres by 3+32.6%

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 +0.1 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Sabres by 1, without the luck Sabres by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Islanders4622.38−0.38
Sabres4323.28−1.28

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 18:33 Tripping on the Islanders (Mathew Barzal): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 17:17 Hooking on the Sabres (Beck Malenstyn): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI
P1 14:59 Delaying game puck over glass on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P3 15:36 Tripping on the Islanders (Jean-Gabriel Pageau): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BUF
P3 10:19 Delaying game puck over glass on the Islanders (Marshall Warren): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BUF
P3 1:27 Slashing on the Sabres (Michael Kesselring): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NYI
OT 0:17 Tripping on the Sabres (Alex Tuch): 2 minutes on the power play +12% NYI

When it happened

Sabres’ 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 Sabres were ahead in it, below while the Islanders were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:13 Rasmus Dahlin scored on a backhand shot from 12 feetShooting · 14% chance +13% BUF –
2 P2 11:05 Tage Thompson scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 16% chance +12% BUF –
3 P2 0:23 Mathew Barzal scored on a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 21% chance +12% NYI –
4 P3 10:19 Delaying game puck over glass on the Islanders (Marshall Warren): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% BUF –
5 P3 1:27 Slashing on the Sabres (Michael Kesselring): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% NYI –
6 P3 0:29 Emil Heineman scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 8% chance +43% NYI –
7 SO The Sabres won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% BUF –
8 OT 0:17 Tripping on the Sabres (Alex Tuch): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +12% NYI –

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

Islanders 29% · Sabres 71%

Final margin
Sabres by 1
Luck in goals
0.1 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Sabres by 1.1
Replay with same day's form
Islanders 33% · Sabres 67% 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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