2025-26 regular season · December 21, 2025
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Sabres at Devils, Dec 21, 2025: who deserved to win?
The Sabres beat the Devils 3–1, but the replays lean toward the Devils: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 37 points of win probability to the Sabres.
The biggest swing (P2, 3:55 left): Zach Benson scored on a snap shot from 21 feet, worth 22 points of win probability to the Sabres.
Final
 Buffalo Sabres | 3 |
|---|---|
 New Jersey Devils | 1 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +66 Sabres very lucky · −66 Devils
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 3, Devils win 7.
- 1 BUF 5 NJD 2
- 2 BUF 3 NJD 2
- 3 BUF 2 NJD 1
- 4 BUF 0 NJD 1
- 5 BUF 2 NJD 3
- 6 BUF 1 NJD 3
- 7 BUF 1 NJD 3
- 8 BUF 2 NJD 5
- 9 BUF 0 NJD 3
- 10 BUF 1 NJD 5
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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 3,999.9 replays ended
Sabres win 34% of them, Devils 66%. The line is what actually happened: Sabres by 2.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Sabres by 3+ | 6.2% |
| Sabres by 2 | 6.0% |
| Sabres by 1 | 22.3% |
| Devils by 1 | 25.4% |
| Devils by 2 | 12.8% |
| Devils by 3+ | 27.3% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Sabres | 33 | 2 | 1.31 | +0.69 |
 Devils | 47 | 1 | 3.08 | −2.08 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 0:12 | High sticking on the Sabres (Zach Benson): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% NJD |
When it happened
Devils’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 72%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 11:09 | Jack Hughes scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 9% chance | +15% NJD | – |
| 2 | P1 0:12 | High sticking on the Sabres (Zach Benson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% NJD | – |
| 3 | P2 17:34 | Josh Norris scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 17% chance | +16% BUF | – |
| 4 | P2 3:55 | Zach Benson scored on a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 10% chance | +22% BUF | – |
| 5 | P3 11:20 | Timo Meier missed the net with a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 13% chance | +4% BUF | – |
| 6 | P3 11:02 | Timo Meier missed the net with a tip from 7 feetShooting · 11% chance | +3% BUF | – |
| 7 | P3 7:57 | Jesper Bratt’s snap shot from 19 feet was savedShooting · 13% chance | +5% BUF | – |
| 8 | P3 2:20 | Jesper Bratt’s wrist shot from 17 feet was savedShooting · 14% chance | +6% BUF | – |
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 63% · Devils 37%
- Final margin
- Sabres by 2
- Luck in goals
- 1.6 for the Sabres
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Sabres by 0.4
- Replay with same day's form
- Sabres 34% · Devils 66% unchanged: why
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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