luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 21, 2026

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

Flyers at Sabres, Oct 21, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Flyers beat the Sabres 3–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Flyers win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 34 points of win probability to the Flyers.

The biggest swing (P1, 5:11 left): Cole Knuble scored on a backhand shot from 8 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Flyers.

Final

Philadelphia Flyers 3
Buffalo Sabres 1

October 21, 2026 · KeyBank Center

Our prediction before puck drop: Sabres by 0.7

Luck index +47 Flyers lucky · −47 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. Flyers win 5, Sabres win 5.

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

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Sabres by 0.7, 61% to win. The Flyers won by 2, a result we gave 39%. The final margin was 2.7 goals from ours; 25% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Flyers win39.1%
Sabres win60.9%
Middle 50%: Flyers by 1 to Sabres by 350%
Middle 90%: Flyers by 3 to Sabres by 490%
Middle 95%: Flyers by 4 to Sabres by 595%
Exactly Sabres by 122.3%
Exactly Flyers by 117.8%
Exactly Sabres by 315.3%
Exactly Sabres by 211.4%
Exactly Flyers by 38.2%

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 Wed, Oct 21, 2:53 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.

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

Flyers win 53% of them, Sabres 47%. The line is what actually happened: Flyers by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flyers by 3+24.7%
Flyers by 29.7%
Flyers by 118.7%
Sabres by 118.6%
Sabres by 28.7%
Sabres by 3+19.6%

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 +2.0 goals to the Flyers: the final margin was Flyers by 2, without the luck even. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flyers3933.46−0.46
Sabres4014.12−3.12

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 18:04 Tripping on the Flyers (Simon Benoit): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 3:30 Roughing on the Flyers (Nick Seeler): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BUF
P1 2:09 Slashing on the Sabres (Noah Ostlund): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P1 0:01 Tripping on the Sabres (Jack Quinn): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P2 5:15 Slashing on the Sabres (Jason Zucker): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P2 4:28 High sticking on the Sabres (Owen Power): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PHI
P2 2:22 High sticking on the Flyers (Travis Sanheim): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BUF
P3 4:47 Instigator on the Sabres (Mattias Samuelsson): 2 minutes on the power play +1% PHI

When it happened

Sabres’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Flyers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 16:34 Noah Ostlund’s between-the-legs shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 33% chance +5% PHI –
2 P1 5:11 Cole Knuble scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 12% chance +16% PHI –
3 P1 4:59 Ryan McLeod’s snap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 26% chance +5% PHI –
4 P1 4:58 Beck Malenstyn’s snap shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 27% chance +5% PHI –
5 P1 2:09 Slashing on the Sabres (Noah Ostlund): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% PHI –
6 P1 0:43 Trevor Zegras scored on a bat shot from 4 feetShooting · 31% chance +11% PHI –
7 P2 0:35 Jason Zucker scored on a deflected shot from 3 feetShooting · 39% chance +10% BUF –
8 P3 16:57 Cole Knuble scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% PHI –

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

Flyers 56% · Sabres 44%

Final margin
Flyers by 2
Luck in goals
2.0 for the Flyers
Luck-adjusted margin
even
Replay with same day's form
Flyers 53% · Sabres 47% 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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