The Vegas Golden Knights prevailed in the season opener 4-1 over the Seattle Kraken on an historic night in which the Stanley Cup Championship banner was raised at T-Mobile Arena.
There was a lot of fanfare on the evening from the Gold Carpet arrivals to a giant slot machine with VGK Captain Mark Stone pulling the handle to unveil the team's first championship banner.
The game culminated a celebration that included a championship ring ceremony and the team lighting the Al Davis torch at Monday night's Raiders-Packers game.
Golden Knights goaltender Adin Hill said "we knew what we did last year and we were all ready to go tonight," when speaking about being focused with all the distractions. Hill returned to his Cup-winning form by stopping all but a Jared McCann shot on 33 Kraken attempts on net.
VGK got past the opening ten minutes of the game and had Chandler Stephenson break through with the team's opening goal of the season. Later in the period Jonathan Marchessault was credited with VGK's second goal on a Brandon Tanev clearing attempt. The Golden Knights built the lead to 3-0 on a rink-long tape-to-tape pass from defenseman Brayden McNabb to Ivan Barbeshev who finished the play. Jared McCann would score the Kraken's only goal. And VGK's Jack Eichel put a capper on the win with an empty-netter late in the third period.
VGK defended well and Bruce Cassidy was pleased with his team's netfront presence. The Golden Knights also did a solid job on the penalty kill, especially when they had to kill off a five-minute Brett Howden major. One noticable difference with the Golden Knights kill was the way they cleared the puck out of their own zone quickly to start their transition game.
On the injury front, forward William Carrier left the game with an undisclosed upper body injury. Zach Whitecloud was moved from I-R to LTIR status, meaning he could be out for a while. Alec Martinez has his left arm in a sling and there is no timeline for his return. VGK's Brett Howden drew a game misconduct and will have to serve a minimum one game suspension.
UP NEXT: VGK skates at San ose Thursday at 7:30pm