2026-27 regular season · November 6, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Blue Jackets at Sabres, Nov 6, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Sabres beat the Blue Jackets 5–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.
The biggest swing (P1, 1:50 left): Josh Norris scored on a snap shot from 24 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Sabres.
Final
 Columbus Blue Jackets | 2 |
|---|---|
 Buffalo Sabres | 5 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +35 Sabres lucky · −35 Blue Jackets
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. Blue Jackets win 3, Sabres win 7.
- 1 CBJ 5 BUF 2
- 2 CBJ 6 BUF 4
- 3 CBJ 4 BUF 3
- 4 CBJ 3 BUF 4
- 5 CBJ 4 BUF 5
- 6 CBJ 1 BUF 3
- 7 CBJ 0 BUF 3
- 8 CBJ 4 BUF 7
- 9 CBJ 1 BUF 5
- 10 CBJ 0 BUF 6
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Sabres by 0.3, 55% to win. The Sabres won by 3: the pick was right. The final margin was 2.7 goals from ours; 26% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Blue Jackets win | 45.1% |
| Sabres win | 54.9% |
| Middle 50%: Blue Jackets by 2 to Sabres by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Blue Jackets by 4 to Sabres by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Blue Jackets by 4 to Sabres by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Sabres by 1 | 21.7% |
| Exactly Blue Jackets by 1 | 19.4% |
| Exactly Sabres by 3 | 13.3% |
| Exactly Sabres by 2 | 10.4% |
| Exactly Blue Jackets by 3 | 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 Fri, Nov 6, 12:46 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 3,999.8 replays ended
Blue Jackets win 35% of them, Sabres 65%. The line is what actually happened: Sabres by 3.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Blue Jackets by 3+ | 11.5% |
| Blue Jackets by 2 | 6.8% |
| Blue Jackets by 1 | 16.4% |
| Sabres by 1 | 16.8% |
| Sabres by 2 | 9.9% |
| Sabres by 3+ | 38.6% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Blue Jackets | 43 | 2 | 3.14 | −1.14 |
 Sabres | 50 | 5 | 4.31 | +0.69 |
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 18:15 | Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Damon Severson): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% BUF |
| P1 0:37 | Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Damon Severson): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% BUF |
| P2 18:26 | Too many men on the ice on the Sabres (BUF): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CBJ |
| P2 9:07 | Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Blue Jackets (CBJ): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% BUF |
| P2 6:59 | High sticking on the Blue Jackets (Dante Fabbro): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% BUF |
| P2 4:36 | Tripping on the Sabres (Owen Power): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% CBJ |
| P3 3:15 | Tripping on the Sabres (Tyson Kozak): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% CBJ |
When it happened
Sabres’ chance of winning
Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 13:10 | Jack Quinn scored on a backhand shot from 13 feetShooting · 9% chance | +15% BUF | – |
| 2 | P1 4:00 | Kent Johnson scored on a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 17% chance | +15% CBJ | – |
| 3 | P1 1:50 | Josh Norris scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 15% chance | +15% BUF | – |
| 4 | P1 0:37 | Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Damon Severson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% BUF | – |
| 5 | P2 18:46 | Zach Benson’s snap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 27% chance | +4% CBJ | – |
| 6 | P2 18:26 | Too many men on the ice on the Sabres (BUF): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% CBJ | – |
| 7 | P2 15:30 | Rasmus Dahlin scored on a slap shot from 52 feetShooting · 3% chance | +14% BUF | – |
| 8 | P2 10:14 | Josh Norris scored on a backhand shot from 4 feetShooting · 24% chance | +6% 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
Blue Jackets 16% · Sabres 84%
- Final margin
- Sabres by 3
- Luck in goals
- 0.8 for the Sabres
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Sabres by 2.2
- Replay with same day's form
- Blue Jackets 35% · Sabres 65% 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 6, 2026-27
- Penguins at Kings Nov 7, 2026 · PIT 5–2 · replay 33% for the winner
- Wild at Flyers Nov 3, 2026 · MIN 4–2 · replay 40% for the winner
- Golden Knights at Sabres Nov 8, 2026 · VGK 4–1 · replay 42% for the winner
- Hurricanes at Predators Nov 3, 2026 · NSH 4–1 · replay 43% for the winner
- Canadiens at Maple Leafs Nov 7, 2026 · MTL 4–2 · replay 43% for the winner
- Hurricanes at Islanders Nov 5, 2026 · CAR 5–3 · replay 45% for the winner
- Mammoth at Senators Nov 7, 2026 · OTT 4–2 · replay 45% for the winner
- Golden Knights at Penguins Nov 3, 2026 · VGK 3–2 · replay 46% for the winner
- Red Wings at Panthers Nov 2, 2026 · DET 5–3 · replay 49% for the winner
- Golden Knights at Red Wings Nov 5, 2026 · VGK 2–1 · replay 50% for the winner
- Flyers at Flames Nov 8, 2026 · CGY 4–3 OT · replay 52% for the winner
- Stars at Blue Jackets Nov 5, 2026 · CBJ 2–1 SO · replay 52% for the winner