2026-27 regular season · October 8, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Stars at Sabres, Oct 8, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Stars beat the Sabres 4–0, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Stars win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 13 points of win probability to the Stars.
The biggest swing (P2, 10:24 left): Sam Steel scored on a snap shot from 46 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Stars.
Final
 Dallas Stars | 4 |
|---|---|
 Buffalo Sabres | 0 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +56 Stars lucky · −56 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. Stars win 4, Sabres win 6.
- 1 DAL 6 BUF 3
- 2 DAL 4 BUF 2
- 3 DAL 3 BUF 2
- 4 DAL 5 BUF 4
- 5 DAL 2 BUF 3
- 6 DAL 1 BUF 2
- 7 DAL 3 BUF 5
- 8 DAL 0 BUF 2
- 9 DAL 1 BUF 4
- 10 DAL 3 BUF 7
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Sabres by 0.1, 53% to win. The Stars won by 4, a result we gave 47%. The final margin was 4.1 goals from ours; 5% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Stars win | 47.4% |
| Sabres win | 52.6% |
| Middle 50%: Stars by 2 to Sabres by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Stars by 4 to Sabres by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Stars by 4 to Sabres by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Sabres by 1 | 21.3% |
| Exactly Stars by 1 | 19.9% |
| Exactly Sabres by 3 | 12.5% |
| Exactly Stars by 3 | 10.7% |
| Exactly Sabres by 2 | 10.0% |
Most of the distance between a forecast and a final score is luck: a hot goalie, a post or a deflection moves a hockey score more than anything known before the game. Made Thu, Oct 8, 1:43 pm ET and frozen at puck drop. How our predictions have done
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
Stars win 44% of them, Sabres 56%. The line is what actually happened: Stars by 4.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Stars by 3+ | 14.8% |
| Stars by 2 | 8.8% |
| Stars by 1 | 20.4% |
| Sabres by 1 | 22.0% |
| Sabres by 2 | 11.3% |
| Sabres by 3+ | 22.7% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Stars | 30 | 4 | 2.40 | +1.60 |
 Sabres | 44 | 0 | 2.98 | −2.98 |
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 0:10 | Tripping on the Sabres (Beck Malenstyn): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% DAL |
| P2 18:10 | Hooking on the Stars (Miro Heiskanen): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% BUF |
| P2 4:59 | Cross checking on the Sabres (Jack Quinn): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% DAL |
| P2 2:30 | Holding on the Stars (Nils Lundkvist): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% BUF |
| P3 12:06 | Interference on the Stars (Lian Bichsel): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% BUF |
When it happened
Sabres’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 54%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 10:57 | Jason Robertson scored on a snap shot from 29 feetShooting · 11% chance | +15% DAL | – |
| 2 | P1 5:10 | Colin Blackwell’s snap shot from 11 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance | +3% BUF | – |
| 3 | P1 0:10 | Tripping on the Sabres (Beck Malenstyn): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% DAL | – |
| 4 | P2 19:51 | Roope Hintz’s snap shot from 20 feet was savedShooting · 24% chance | +4% BUF | – |
| 5 | P2 18:47 | Jason Robertson’s snap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 31% chance | +5% BUF | – |
| 6 | P2 18:10 | Hooking on the Stars (Miro Heiskanen): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% BUF | – |
| 7 | P2 10:24 | Sam Steel scored on a snap shot from 46 feetShooting · 4% chance | +16% DAL | – |
| 8 | P2 6:03 | Mikko Rantanen scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 9% chance | +8% DAL | – |
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
Stars 58% · Sabres 42%
- Final margin
- Stars by 4
- Luck in goals
- 3.4 for the Stars
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Stars by 0.6
- Replay with same day's form
- Stars 44% · Sabres 56% 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.
More from week 2, 2026-27
- Mammoth at Bruins Oct 8, 2026 · BOS 6–1 · replay 27% for the winner
- Predators at Canadiens Oct 8, 2026 · NSH 5–2 · replay 34% for the winner
- Maple Leafs at Avalanche Oct 10, 2026 · TOR 6–3 · replay 35% for the winner
- Blues at Blackhawks Oct 6, 2026 · CHI 4–2 · replay 38% for the winner
- Sharks at Blues Oct 8, 2026 · SJS 3–2 OT · replay 39% for the winner
- Avalanche at Jets Oct 7, 2026 · WPG 3–2 · replay 39% for the winner
- Senators at Bruins Oct 5, 2026 · OTT 4–1 · replay 43% for the winner
- Kraken at Red Wings Oct 9, 2026 · SEA 6–3 · replay 46% for the winner
- Flyers at Senators Oct 8, 2026 · OTT 2–1 · replay 46% for the winner
- Jets at Penguins Oct 5, 2026 · WPG 3–2 · replay 46% for the winner
- Avalanche at Flames Oct 8, 2026 · COL 7–3 · replay 49% for the winner
- Wild at Panthers Oct 10, 2026 · MIN 4–1 · replay 49% for the winner