luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

First round 2025-26 · April 19, 2026

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

Bruins at Sabres, Game 1, first round 2025-26: who deserved to win?

The Sabres beat the Bruins 4–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P3, 3:24 left): Mattias Samuelsson scored on a wrist shot from 33 feet, worth 38 points of win probability to the Sabres.

Final

Boston Bruins 3
Buffalo Sabres 4

April 19, 2026 · KeyBank Center

Luck index +39 Sabres lucky · −39 Bruins

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 5 BUF 2
  2. 2 BOS 4 BUF 2
  3. 3 BOS 2 BUF 1
  4. 4 BOS 2 BUF 1
  5. 5 BOS 3 BUF 4
  6. 6 BOS 1 BUF 2
  7. 7 BOS 1 BUF 2
  8. 8 BOS 2 BUF 5
  9. 9 BOS 1 BUF 4
  10. 10 BOS 0 BUF 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Bruins win 39% of them, Sabres 61%. The line is what actually happened: Sabres by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bruins by 3+12.4%
Bruins by 27.9%
Bruins by 118.8%
Sabres by 122.4%
Sabres by 211.1%
Sabres by 3+27.4%

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 +1.0 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Sabres by 1, without the luck Sabres by 2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Bruins3231.98+1.02
Sabres5432.99+0.01

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 7:57 Hooking on the Sabres (Rasmus Dahlin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 5:15 Cross checking on the Bruins (Nikita Zadorov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 1:10 Hooking on the Sabres (Jason Zucker): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P2 19:33 Holding on the Bruins (Pavel Zacha): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P2 7:18 Holding on the Bruins (Andrew Peeke): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BUF
P3 17:19 Slashing on the Bruins (David Pastrnak): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P3 0:19 Tripping on the Sabres (Tage Thompson): 2 minutes on the power play 0% BOS

When it happened

Sabres’ chance of winning

As low as 4% 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 Bruins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 9:08 Morgan Geekie scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 15% chance +15% BOS –
2 P1 3:46 Ryan McLeod’s snap shot from 10 feet was savedShooting · 24% chance +4% BOS –
3 P2 7:18 Holding on the Bruins (Andrew Peeke): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% BUF –
4 P3 18:52 Elias Lindholm scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 16% chance +14% BOS –
5 P3 7:58 Tage Thompson scored on a wraparound from 3 feetShooting · 11% chance +12% BUF –
6 P3 6:09 Tage Thompson missed the net with a bat shot from 10 feetShooting · 15% chance +6% BOS –
7 P3 4:16 Tage Thompson scored on a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 11% chance +35% BUF –
8 P3 3:24 Mattias Samuelsson scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 6% chance +38% 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

Bruins 15% · Sabres 85%

Final margin
Sabres by 1
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Sabres by 2.0
Replay with same day's form
Bruins 39% · Sabres 61% 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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