luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 25, 2026 · OT

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

Bruins at Sabres, Mar 25, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Bruins beat the Sabres 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Bruins win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Bruins.

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

Final (OT)

Boston Bruins 4
Buffalo Sabres 3

March 25, 2026 · KeyBank Center

Luck index +58 Bruins lucky · −58 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. Bruins win 4, Sabres win 6.

  1. 1 BOS 6 BUF 3
  2. 2 BOS 2 BUF 0
  3. 3 BOS 4 BUF 3
  4. 4 BOS 2 BUF 1
  5. 5 BOS 1 BUF 2
  6. 6 BOS 2 BUF 3
  7. 7 BOS 3 BUF 5
  8. 8 BOS 0 BUF 3
  9. 9 BOS 2 BUF 5
  10. 10 BOS 1 BUF 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 replays ended

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

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bruins by 3+12.4%
Bruins by 28.9%
Bruins by 120.5%
Sabres by 122.8%
Sabres by 211.5%
Sabres by 3+23.9%

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 +1.5 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Bruins 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
Bruins4432.08+0.92
Sabres3832.78+0.22

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 19:39 Cross checking on the Sabres (Rasmus Dahlin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 6:14 Tripping on the Bruins (Elias Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P2 9:09 Tripping on the Bruins (Fraser Minten): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P3 16:41 Tripping on the Sabres (Logan Stanley): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BOS
P3 14:39 Cross checking on the Bruins (Mason Lohrei): 2 minutes on the power play +7% BUF

When it happened

Sabres’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 87%. 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 Bruins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 8:53 David Pastrnak scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 10% chance +16% BOS –
2 P1 4:42 Jason Zucker scored on a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 21% chance +14% BUF –
3 P2 10:15 Viktor Arvidsson scored on a backhand shot from 17 feetShooting · 8% chance +20% BOS –
4 P3 16:41 Tripping on the Sabres (Logan Stanley): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% BOS –
5 P3 14:39 Zach Benson scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 13% chanceCross checking on the Bruins (Mason Lohrei): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +32% BUF –
6 P3 14:06 Jason Zucker scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 20% chance +23% BUF –
7 P3 6:00 Casey Mittelstadt scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 19% chance +30% BOS –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Bruins won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% BOS –

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

Bruins 36% · Sabres 64%

Final margin
Bruins by 1
Luck in goals
1.5 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Sabres by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Bruins 42% · Sabres 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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