2026-27 regular season · November 8, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Golden Knights at Sabres, Nov 8, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Golden Knights beat the Sabres 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Golden Knights win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 34 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.
The biggest swing (P2, 6:17 left): Jack Eichel scored on a wrist shot from 15 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.
Final
 Vegas Golden Knights | 4 |
|---|---|
 Buffalo Sabres | 1 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +58 Golden Knights lucky · −58 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. Golden Knights win 4, Sabres win 6.
- 1 VGK 4 BUF 1
- 2 VGK 5 BUF 2
- 3 VGK 4 BUF 3
- 4 VGK 4 BUF 3
- 5 VGK 6 BUF 7
- 6 VGK 3 BUF 4
- 7 VGK 3 BUF 5
- 8 VGK 2 BUF 5
- 9 VGK 2 BUF 5
- 10 VGK 1 BUF 6
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Golden Knights by 0.2, 53% to win. The Golden Knights won by 3: the pick was right. The final margin was 2.8 goals from ours; 26% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Golden Knights win | 53.4% |
| Sabres win | 46.6% |
| Middle 50%: Golden Knights by 2 to Sabres by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Golden Knights by 4 to Sabres by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Golden Knights by 5 to Sabres by 4 | 95% |
| Exactly Golden Knights by 1 | 20.9% |
| Exactly Sabres by 1 | 20.1% |
| Exactly Golden Knights by 3 | 12.6% |
| Exactly Golden Knights by 2 | 10.8% |
| Exactly Sabres by 3 | 10.6% |
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 Sun, Nov 8, 11:51 am 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 3,999.9 replays ended
Golden Knights win 42% of them, Sabres 58%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 3.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Golden Knights by 3+ | 15.1% |
| Golden Knights by 2 | 7.8% |
| Golden Knights by 1 | 18.6% |
| Sabres by 1 | 19.0% |
| Sabres by 2 | 10.2% |
| Sabres by 3+ | 29.2% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Golden Knights | 41 | 4 | 3.18 | +0.82 |
 Sabres | 50 | 1 | 3.97 | −2.97 |
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 11:19 | High sticking on the Sabres (Olen Zellweger): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% VGK |
| P1 2:32 | High sticking on the Sabres (Conor Timmins): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% VGK |
| P2 17:04 | Tripping on the Golden Knights (Dylan Coghlan): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% BUF |
| P2 14:30 | Hooking on the Golden Knights (Brett Howden): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% BUF |
| P2 8:29 | Hooking on the Golden Knights (Ivan Barbashev): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% BUF |
| P3 1:07 | Slashing on the Sabres (Rasmus Dahlin): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% VGK |
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 | P2 15:52 | William Karlsson’s wrist shot from 24 feet was savedShooting · 12% chanceWilliam Karlsson’s wrist shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance | +6% BUF | – |
| 2 | P2 14:30 | Hooking on the Golden Knights (Brett Howden): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% BUF | – |
| 3 | P2 8:29 | Hooking on the Golden Knights (Ivan Barbashev): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% BUF | – |
| 4 | P2 7:43 | Mitch Marner scored on a wrist shot from 3 feetShooting · 46% chance | +12% VGK | – |
| 5 | P2 7:18 | Josh Norris missed the net with a snap shot from 17 feetShooting · 25% chance | +6% VGK | – |
| 6 | P2 6:17 | Jack Eichel scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 12% chance | +15% VGK | – |
| 7 | P3 15:34 | Beck Malenstyn scored on a wrist shot from 3 feetShooting · 23% chance | +12% BUF | – |
| 8 | P3 14:17 | Tomas Hertl scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 13% chance | +14% VGK | – |
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
Golden Knights 54% · Sabres 46%
- Final margin
- Golden Knights by 3
- Luck in goals
- 2.8 for the Golden Knights
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Golden Knights by 0.2
- Replay with same day's form
- Golden Knights 42% · Sabres 58% 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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