luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 3, 2026

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

Sabres at Blue Jackets, Jan 3, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Blue Jackets beat the Sabres 5–1, but the replays lean toward the Sabres: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 23 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

The biggest swing (P1, 17:00 left): Denton Mateychuk scored on a wrist shot from 54 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

Final

Buffalo Sabres 1
Columbus Blue Jackets 5

January 3, 2026 · Nationwide Arena

Luck index +63 Blue Jackets very lucky · −63 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, Blue Jackets win 4.

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

Sabres win 63% of them, Blue Jackets 37%. The line is what actually happened: Blue Jackets by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sabres by 3+37.0%
Sabres by 210.5%
Sabres by 115.4%
Blue Jackets by 117.7%
Blue Jackets by 27.0%
Blue Jackets by 3+12.4%

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 +3.7 goals to the Blue Jackets: the final margin was Blue Jackets by 4, without the luck Blue Jackets by 0.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sabres6614.80−3.80
Blue Jackets4843.10+0.90

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 15:45 Hooking on the Blue Jackets (Damon Severson): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P1 8:08 Tripping on the Sabres (Jacob Bryson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P1 6:19 Hooking on the Blue Jackets (Kent Johnson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 1:59 Cross checking on the Blue Jackets (Mathieu Olivier): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P2 0:20 Slashing on the Blue Jackets (Dante Fabbro): 2 minutes on the power play +1% BUF
P3 5:27 Interference on the Blue Jackets (Ivan Provorov): 2 minutes on the power play 0% BUF

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ 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 Blue Jackets were ahead in it, below while the Sabres were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 17:00 Denton Mateychuk scored on a wrist shot from 54 feetShooting · 1% chance +15% CBJ –
2 P1 8:34 Josh Doan scored on a snap shot from 4 feetShooting · 19% chance +14% BUF –
3 P1 8:08 Tripping on the Sabres (Jacob Bryson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% CBJ –
4 P1 6:19 Hooking on the Blue Jackets (Kent Johnson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% BUF –
5 P1 5:56 Brendan Gaunce scored on a snap shot from 32 feetShooting · 11% chance +15% CBJ –
6 P1 3:46 Tage Thompson’s snap shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 25% chance +4% CBJ –
7 P1 2:48 Dmitri Voronkov scored on a tip from 8 feetShooting · 8% chance +13% CBJ –
8 P2 11:56 Mathieu Olivier scored on a backhand shot from 17 feetShooting · 6% chance +7% CBJ –

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 48% · Blue Jackets 52%

Final margin
Blue Jackets by 4
Luck in goals
3.7 for the Blue Jackets
Luck-adjusted margin
Blue Jackets by 0.3
Replay with same day's form
Sabres 63% · Blue Jackets 37% 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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