luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 8, 2026

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

Lightning at Sabres, Mar 8, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Sabres beat the Lightning 8–7, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Sabres win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 58 points of win probability to the Sabres.

The biggest swing (P3, 5:31 left): Jason Zucker scored on a backhand shot from 11 feet, worth 34 points of win probability to the Sabres.

Final

Tampa Bay Lightning 7
Buffalo Sabres 8

March 8, 2026 · KeyBank Center

Luck index +52 Sabres lucky · −52 Lightning

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. Lightning win 5, Sabres win 5.

  1. 1 TBL 7 BUF 3
  2. 2 TBL 5 BUF 2
  3. 3 TBL 7 BUF 5
  4. 4 TBL 5 BUF 4
  5. 5 TBL 6 BUF 5
  6. 6 TBL 3 BUF 4
  7. 7 TBL 3 BUF 4
  8. 8 TBL 1 BUF 3
  9. 9 TBL 3 BUF 6
  10. 10 TBL 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Lightning win 52% of them, Sabres 48%. The line is what actually happened: Sabres by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+24.6%
Lightning by 29.1%
Lightning by 118.1%
Sabres by 118.3%
Sabres by 28.7%
Sabres by 3+21.3%

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.

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 +0.5 goals to the Sabres: the final margin was Sabres by 1, without the luck Sabres by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning4573.96+3.04
Sabres5283.76+4.24

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 15:24 Slashing on the Lightning (Darren Raddysh): 4 minutes on the power play +8% BUF
P1 11:40 Interference on the Lightning (Erik Cernak): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 3:19 Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Sabres (Noah Ostlund): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 18:29 High sticking on the Lightning (Ryan McDonagh): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P2 16:25 Roughing on the Lightning (Brandon Hagel): 4 minutes on the power play +5% BUF
P2 9:04 High sticking on the Sabres (Owen Power): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TBL
P3 4:57 Slashing on the Lightning (Zemgus Girgensons): 2 minutes on the power play +9% BUF
P3 0:00 Charging on the Lightning (Anthony Cirelli): 2 minutes on the power play +6% BUF

When it happened

Sabres’ chance of winning

As low as 5% 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 Sabres were ahead in it, below while the Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:34 Josh Doan scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% BUF –
2 P2 5:14 Zemgus Girgensons scored on a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 13% chance +13% TBL –
3 P2 2:23 J.J. Moser scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 14% chance +20% TBL –
4 P3 19:01 Nikita Kucherov scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 10% chance +23% TBL –
5 P3 13:48 Sam Carrick scored on a wrist shot from 34 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% BUF –
6 P3 10:12 Brandon Hagel scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 11% chance +13% TBL –
7 P3 5:31 Jason Zucker scored on a backhand shot from 11 feetShooting · 11% chance +34% BUF –
8 P3 4:17 Josh Doan scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 20% chance +31% 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

Lightning 43% · Sabres 57%

Final margin
Sabres by 1
Luck in goals
0.5 for the Sabres
Luck-adjusted margin
Sabres by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 52% · Sabres 48% 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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