luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · February 3, 2026 · OT

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

Sabres at Lightning, Feb 3, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Lightning beat the Sabres 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Lightning win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Lightning.

The biggest swing (OT): the Lightning won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Lightning.

Final (OT)

Buffalo Sabres 3
Tampa Bay Lightning 4

February 3, 2026 · Benchmark International Arena

Luck index +42 Lightning lucky · −42 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 4, Lightning win 6.

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

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 42% of them, Lightning 58%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sabres by 3+11.8%
Sabres by 29.2%
Sabres by 121.2%
Lightning by 122.8%
Lightning by 212.2%
Lightning by 3+22.7%

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 +0.3 goals to the Lightning: the final margin was Lightning by 1, without the luck Lightning by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sabres3332.14+0.86
Lightning4632.98+0.02

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 18:50 Holding on the Sabres (Noah Ostlund): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P1 9:25 Holding on the Lightning (Gage Goncalves): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P1 6:05 Tripping on the Lightning (J.J. Moser): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P3 12:27 Hooking on the Sabres (Bowen Byram): 2 minutes on the power play +5% TBL
P3 7:05 Hooking on the Lightning (Curtis Douglas): 2 minutes on the power play +8% BUF

When it happened

Lightning’ chance of winning

As low as 6% and as high as 100%. 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 Lightning were ahead in it, below while the Sabres were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 9:36 Nikita Kucherov scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 6% chance +16% TBL –
2 P1 3:07 Mattias Samuelsson scored on a wrist shot from 28 feetShooting · 2% chance +17% BUF –
3 P3 15:52 Mattias Samuelsson scored on a wrist shot from 45 feetShooting · 3% chance +27% BUF –
4 P3 11:07 Oliver Bjorkstrand scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 25% chance +24% TBL –
5 P3 7:05 Hooking on the Lightning (Curtis Douglas): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% BUF –
6 P3 5:07 Josh Doan scored on a deflected shot from 9 feetShooting · 12% chance +34% BUF –
7 P3 0:26 Darren Raddysh scored on a slap shot from 45 feetShooting · 6% chance +45% TBL –
8 OT The Lightning won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% TBL –

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 34% · Lightning 66%

Final margin
Lightning by 1
Luck in goals
0.3 for the Lightning
Luck-adjusted margin
Lightning by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Sabres 42% · Lightning 58% 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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