2025-26 regular season · April 13, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Sabres at Blackhawks, Apr 13, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Sabres beat the Blackhawks 5–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Sabres win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 22 points of win probability to the Sabres.
The biggest swing (P2, 7:00 left): Tage Thompson scored on a wrist shot from 16 feet, worth 19 points of win probability to the Sabres.
Final
 Buffalo Sabres | 5 |
|---|---|
 Chicago Blackhawks | 1 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +41 Sabres lucky · −41 Blackhawks
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 6, Blackhawks win 4.
- 1 BUF 5 CHI 1
- 2 BUF 5 CHI 2
- 3 BUF 4 CHI 2
- 4 BUF 3 CHI 1
- 5 BUF 2 CHI 1
- 6 BUF 3 CHI 2
- 7 BUF 1 CHI 2
- 8 BUF 2 CHI 3
- 9 BUF 1 CHI 3
- 10 BUF 0 CHI 3
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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
Sabres win 59% of them, Blackhawks 41%. The line is what actually happened: Sabres by 4.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Sabres by 3+ | 26.5% |
| Sabres by 2 | 12.0% |
| Sabres by 1 | 20.2% |
| Blackhawks by 1 | 22.8% |
| Blackhawks by 2 | 7.7% |
| Blackhawks by 3+ | 10.8% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Sabres | 41 | 5 | 2.86 | +2.14 |
 Blackhawks | 29 | 1 | 2.05 | −1.05 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 16:16 | High sticking on the Blackhawks (Sam Rinzel): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% BUF |
| P1 12:11 | Tripping on the Sabres (Rasmus Dahlin): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% CHI |
| P2 2:12 | Holding on the Sabres (Beck Malenstyn): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% CHI |
| P3 17:58 | Cross checking on the Sabres (Jason Zucker): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% CHI |
| P3 17:11 | Too many men on the ice on the Sabres (BUF): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% CHI |
| P3 13:39 | Holding on the Sabres (Logan Stanley): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% CHI |
| P3 10:56 | Holding on the Blackhawks (Louis Crevier): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% BUF |
When it happened
Blackhawks’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 71%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 16:02 | Ryan Greene scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 14% chance | +14% CHI | – |
| 2 | P1 0:58 | Josh Norris scored on a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 8% chance | +17% BUF | – |
| 3 | P2 7:00 | Tage Thompson scored on a wrist shot from 16 feetShooting · 16% chance | +19% BUF | – |
| 4 | P2 2:12 | Holding on the Sabres (Beck Malenstyn): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% CHI | – |
| 5 | P3 17:58 | Cross checking on the Sabres (Jason Zucker): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% CHI | – |
| 6 | P3 17:29 | Anton Frondell’s bat shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 26% chance | +7% BUF | – |
| 7 | P3 17:11 | Too many men on the ice on the Sabres (BUF): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% CHI | – |
| 8 | P3 14:22 | Alex Tuch scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 11% chance | +14% 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
Sabres 81% · Blackhawks 19%
- Final margin
- Sabres by 4
- Luck in goals
- 2.4 for the Sabres
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Sabres by 1.6
- Replay with same day's form
- Sabres 59% · Blackhawks 41% unchanged: why
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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