luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 17, 2026 · OT

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

Wild at Sabres, Jan 17, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Wild beat the Sabres 5–4, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Wild won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Wild.

Final (OT)

Minnesota Wild 5
Buffalo Sabres 4

January 17, 2026 · KeyBank Center

Luck index +33 Wild lucky · −33 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. Wild win 7, Sabres win 3.

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

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

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Wild by 3+40.0%
Wild by 210.7%
Wild by 116.3%
Sabres by 116.3%
Sabres by 26.7%
Sabres by 3+9.9%

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 Sabres: the final margin was Wild by 1, without the luck Wild by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Wild4644.52−0.52
Sabres3842.98+1.02

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 16:50 Hooking on the Sabres (Tage Thompson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P1 4:35 Hooking on the Wild (Quinn Hughes): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 3:34 Hooking on the Wild (Danila Yurov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P2 18:13 Slashing on the Sabres (Bowen Byram): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MIN
P2 15:52 Hooking on the Sabres (Michael Kesselring): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MIN
P2 7:41 Roughing on the Wild (David Jiricek): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BUF
P2 4:59 Holding on the Wild (Danila Yurov): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BUF
P3 0:14 Hooking on the Sabres (Peyton Krebs): 2 minutes on the power play +11% MIN

When it happened

Sabres’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 76%. 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 Wild were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 9:55 Ryan McLeod scored on a deflected shot from 10 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% BUF –
2 P1 0:08 Ryan Hartman scored on a tip from 2 feetShooting · 25% chance +14% MIN –
3 P2 18:52 Vladimir Tarasenko scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 9% chance +14% MIN –
4 P2 9:53 Peyton Krebs scored on a tip from 12 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% BUF –
5 P2 8:26 Jack Quinn scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 15% chance +19% BUF –
6 P2 3:53 Alex Tuch scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 5% chance +22% BUF –
7 P2 2:56 Quinn Hughes scored on a slap shot from 36 feetShooting · 10% chance +21% MIN –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Wild won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% MIN –

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

Wild 72% · Sabres 28%

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