luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · April 2, 2026

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

Sabres at Senators, Apr 2, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Senators beat the Sabres 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Senators win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 17 points of win probability to the Senators.

The biggest swing (P3, 14:05 left): Lars Eller scored on a slap shot from 26 feet, worth 25 points of win probability to the Senators.

Final

Buffalo Sabres 1
Ottawa Senators 4

April 2, 2026 · Canadian Tire Centre

Luck index +46 Senators lucky · −46 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 5, Senators win 5.

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

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 3,999.9 replays ended

Sabres win 46% of them, Senators 54%. The line is what actually happened: Senators by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sabres by 3+13.6%
Sabres by 29.8%
Sabres by 122.7%
Senators by 123.7%
Senators by 211.4%
Senators by 3+18.8%

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 +1.2 goals to the Senators: the final margin was Senators by 3, without the luck Senators by 1.8. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sabres3612.10−1.10
Senators3622.15−0.15

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 16:21 Holding on the Sabres (Zach Benson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P1 10:01 Slashing on the Senators (Brady Tkachuk): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 7:24 Interference on the Senators (Jordan Spence): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P2 8:59 Cross checking on the Sabres (Ryan McLeod): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT

When it happened

Senators’ chance of winning

As low as 29% 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 Senators were ahead in it, below while the Sabres were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 10:01 Slashing on the Senators (Brady Tkachuk): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% BUF –
2 P1 7:24 Interference on the Senators (Jordan Spence): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% BUF –
3 P1 6:32 Tage Thompson’s snap shot from 26 feet was savedShooting · 21% chance +4% OTT –
4 P2 11:11 Mattias Samuelsson scored on a wrist shot from 50 feetShooting · 1% chance +21% BUF –
5 P2 8:59 Cross checking on the Sabres (Ryan McLeod): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% OTT –
6 P2 4:54 Nick Cousins’s tip from 4 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +5% BUF –
7 P2 4:42 Dylan Cozens scored on a tip from 7 feetShooting · 11% chance +21% OTT –
8 P3 14:05 Lars Eller scored on a slap shot from 26 feetShooting · 13% chance +25% OTT –

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 12% · Senators 88%

Final margin
Senators by 3
Luck in goals
1.2 for the Senators
Luck-adjusted margin
Senators by 1.8
Replay with same day's form
Sabres 46% · Senators 54% 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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