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DAL 4 – 0 BUF

Dallas Stars at Buffalo Sabres

Final · Oct 8, 2026
2026-27 · regular season

The call

BUF 54.5% ✗

expected 2.89–3.16 · DAL won 4–0

actual xG
2.17–2.39

xG share, predicted → actual

DAL 48% → 48%52% → 52% BUF

Today's puzzle Remember Some Guys — name the skater from the shape of his career. Three clues, one guess a day. Play →

Adjusts with rink filters

Strength and score are read from DAL's side, the same minutes at both ends: PP = DAL power play · PK = BUF power play · Leading = DAL ahead · ST = each club's own power play.

DAL attacks◀ all strengths

BUF attacksall strengths ▶

× goal• on net ◦ missed· blocked hover any attempt for the shooter, its xG and everything the model saw Save

How to read this map

One rink, both teams: DAL attacks the left net, BUF the right. Every attempt is a Gaussian bump of height = its model xG. The controls switch the surface (xG heatmap ↔ vs league) and the markers; vs league compares this game against a typical NHL team-game under the same filter (2025-26 regular season, 1312 games), so a 5v5 view is measured against league 5v5.

A strength or score filter is read from DAL's side and mirrored for BUF: “DAL PP” shows DAL's power-play attempts on the left and BUF's shorthanded attempts on the right — the same minutes of the game at both ends. Empty-net attempts are excluded unless you include them. The Player control narrows the map and the rows beneath it to the attempts by either club while one player was on the ice (for a goalie, while he was in net); his own attempts wear a blue ring. vs league switches off while a player is picked — the league baseline is a whole team-game, which one player's slice is not. Hover any attempt for the shooter, the result, its xG, and the inputs behind it: clock, strength, score, shot type, distance, angle, handedness, rush/rebound, what happened just before, and the goalie or the blocker.

What each side produced

all strengths · regular season

DAL BUF

bars share a scale within each row · the longer bar is the row's leader

Goalson the map

4 0

Expected goals

2.17 2.40

xG%share of xG

48% 52%

High-dangerattempts ≥ 0.20 xG

4 0

Shots on goal

18 26

Attempts

39 63

xG by period · whole game 1st0.7–0.62nd1.2–0.63rd0.3–1.2

The Stars beat the Sabres 4–0 on the road in a game the chances called about even, DAL 2.2 to BUF 2.4 in expected goals. At 5v5: DAL 1.4, BUF 2.2.

Counts come from the shot table behind the map: empty-net attempts and the shootout are excluded, so the goals here can trail the official final by an empty-netter or the shootout's deciding goal. Same numbers as the post-game cards.

As the game went

cumulative DAL − BUF xG · bands = power plays · lines = goals Save

How to read this

One line: cumulative DAL minus BUF expected goals. Above zero DAL is ahead on chances, below zero BUF is. Shaded bands are power plays in the side's colour; vertical lines are goals.

Skaters

on-ice xG · sorted by net · one game

How to read this

Every skater, sorted by net on-ice expected goals: on-ice xG against to the left of zero, for to the right, his own attempts as the solid bar, a hash at the net. The slim track under the name is ice time.

DAL

against for own net ice time

Save

BUF

against for own net ice time

Save

Lines & pairs

most-used 5v5 units · when they played · on-ice xG

How to read this

The forward lines and defence pairs that actually played together most at 5v5, each with when it was on the ice across the game clock (period and power-play bands behind the strip) and on-ice xG against/for while the whole unit was out.

DAL

on ice power play penalty kill xGA xGF

Save

BUF

on ice power play penalty kill xGA xGF

Save

Matchups

5v5 · every skater against every skater, goalies first · hover a cell Save

DAL won the chances BUF won them full colour = a margin of 0.75 xG or more taller = more time together (full height at 12:00) on together, dead even never on together G = goalie: his row or column is each skater against the whole other team

How to read this

Rows are DAL's skaters, columns BUF's, grouped the way they played: forward lines (L1 = the line that played together most), then defence pairs. Each cell covers the five-on-five time those two players shared the ice. Its colour is the club that out-chanced the other in that time — expected goals for minus against — and the stronger the colour, the bigger the margin. Each cell is also raised: the taller the block, the longer the two shared the ice, up to full height at 12:00 of five-on-five time. A grey cell means they met and it came out even; an open, flat one means they never met at five-on-five.

The first row and column are the goalies. A goalie is in net for every five-on-five second, so a skater's cell against the other side's goalie is all of that skater's five-on-five time against that team — the rest of his row or column added up — and the corner where the two goalies meet is the game's five-on-five. Those cells cover far more time than any pair, so they reach full colour sooner and stand at full height, a wall along each edge of the grid. A goalie change adds a second goalie row or column, each covering his own time.

Linemates share the ice, so a line against a line reads as a block. The margin is a total, not a rate: a long matchup has room to build a big gap and a thirty-second one does not — which is what the height is there to show: a tall, strong cell is the game's story; a short, strong one is a moment. Hover (or tap) any cell for the exact time together, the xG each way, attempts and goals. One game — a strong cell is what happened, not what would happen again.

Goals

xG = the chance, before it went in

Team	Scorer	Period	Time		xG
DAL	Jason Robertson	1st	9:03		0.11
DAL	Sam Steel	2nd	9:36		0.02
DAL	Mikko Rantanen	2nd	13:57		0.12
DAL	Roope Hintz	2nd	15:34	PP	0.16

The prediction, scored

Before puck drop the engine made BUF a 54.5% favorite, expecting a 2.89–3.16 game — DAL won 4–0, so the call missed. Every number in this section was issued before the game and is never re-graded.

Predicted 5v5 / special-teams portions come from the predicted map's strength splits (one shared scale per team pins the all-strengths total to its expected goals), so they don't sum exactly — the remainder is 4v4, 3v3, and other mixed states. The actual columns are the card's own counts (empty-net attempts excluded); the actual PP column is power-play xG only, the same bucket the predicted map's special-teams view draws.

The pregame score grid

The likeliest finals the engine saw before the game, with what actually happened marked — ■ DAL · ■ BUF.

Scoreline odds treat the two teams' totals as independent — the engine's known simplification (it slightly under-counts regulation ties; the correlation term is registered v1.1 work). The OT/SO layer is a separate fitted model and is already inside the headline win probability.

The pregame read

The engine made BUF a 54.5% favorite — BUF controls 52.2% of the predicted xG. Of DAL's 2.89 expected goals, 1.90 should come at 5v5 and 0.86 on the power play; BUF projects 2.49 at 5v5 and 0.45 on the power play. The logistic challenger put the home side at 54.9%, Elo at 57.9%.

Where the engine expected the goals

The predicted surface, issued before puck drop — not this game's shots (those are the card's map above). DAL attacks the left net, BUF the right; each end multiplies where the attacking team generates xG this season by where its opponent concedes it, scaled so each end totals the engine's expected goals. Actual shots lays the game's unblocked attempts on top: × goals, • on net, ◦ missed.

Tale of the tape

How each team fares on its own, season to date: per-game xG rates with league rank (of 32). Rank 1 is best on every row — orange ranks sit in the top third of the league, gray in the bottom third.

Season-to-date form as of the site's latest build, shown for context — the ratings the engine actually used were its own as-of-game-day state. Replay this matchup in the lab →