Mitch Marner's Overtime Power-Play Goal Lifts Golden Knights Past Kings, 2-1

LAS VEGAS

The Golden Knights needed just 2 minutes and 40 seconds of overtime to turn a Saturday night into a celebration of their past and their present. Mitch Marner snapped a wrist shot from the high slot past a Mark Stone screen and beyond the glove of Darcy Kuemper for a 4-on-3 power-play goal, lifting Vegas to a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings at T-Mobile Arena and a perfect 4-0-0 start to the season.

The winner came seconds after Kings center Scott Laughton was sent to the penalty box for tripping Shea Theodore, giving Vegas the 4-on-3 advantage it needed. Marner skated from near the blue line toward the slot and finished seven seconds into the penalty, according to the Associated Press. It was his second goal of the season, the eighth overtime winner of his career, and his first as a Golden Knight, per Reuters.

How they got there

For long stretches, the game looked like it might never crack open. A scoreless first period gave way to a second period that belonged almost entirely to Vegas — the Knights outshot the Kings 14-3 in the frame, per Reuters — and produced the game's only two regulation goals, both on the power play.

Vegas struck first at the 2:37 mark of the second, when rookie Trevor Connelly one-timed a cross-crease pass from Stone inside the right post for his second goal of the season. Los Angeles answered with its own man-advantage marker: Artemi Panarin fired a shot from above the circles that caromed off the left post and in for his third goal of the year. The third period solved nothing, and for the second time in three home games this week, the Knights needed extra hockey to get their two points.

The power play is cooking

Both Vegas goals came with the man advantage, and the unit that went 0-for-4 against Toronto two nights earlier reloaded in a hurry. The Knights finished 2-for-3 on the power play against the Kings, improving their season conversion rate to 30.4 percent — seven goals on 23 opportunities, per Vegas Hockey Knight's recap.

The two-goal night also told the story of the 20-year-old Connelly's fast start. He scored his first career power-play goal in the second period off a feed from Stone and Marner, then returned the favor in overtime, keeping the puck alive along the boards on the ensuing sequence before Stone knocked it back to the point where Marner took over. Stone, the captain, finished with assists on both Vegas goals. And while Jack Eichel's point streak to open the season came to an end, he kept the puck in the zone in the seconds before Connelly's goal — the kind of sequence that doesn't always make the scoresheet but starts the ones that do.

Hart stands tall

Carter Hart got the start in the Vegas crease and delivered 26 saves, steady through a game where the Kings kept pushing despite being outplayed for long stretches. At the other end, Kuemper stopped 30 — but the veteran netminder's history beyond regulation kept haunting him. Kuemper led the NHL with 15 losses in games beyond regulation last season, per Reuters, and Saturday added another.

A night for the Misfits

Saturday was about more than two points. In their 10th season, the Golden Knights paid tribute throughout the game to the inaugural 2017-18 team — the original "Misfits" that improbably skated to the Stanley Cup Final. Gerard Gallant, who coached that team, was in the building along with several of its players, according to the AP. Fan favorite Ryan Reaves, who retired last month after 16 NHL seasons, cranked the pregame siren to send the building into a roar before puck drop.

The evening even had its own bit of chaos: referee Furman South briefly went down to the ice early in the third period when Vegas center Nic Dowd collided with him. South got up holding his midsection but stayed in the game, per the AP.

First in the Pacific

The win leapfrogged Vegas over the Edmonton Oilers and back into first place in the Pacific Division, per Reuters — a fitting spot for a team that hasn't trailed at any meaningful point of this young season. The 4-0-0 start follows a 3-2 win in Vancouver on Oct. 4, a 6-2 rout in Seattle on Oct. 6, and Thursday's 4-3 shootout comeback over Toronto, when the Knights erased a 3-0 first-period deficit.

The Kings, meanwhile, keep searching. Los Angeles is 0-2-2 under first-year head coach Peter Laviolette — the first time in franchise history the Kings have opened a season with four straight losses, per Reuters. The club that set an NHL record last season by playing 33 of its 82 regular-season games beyond regulation has now dropped both of its overtime games this year.

What's next

The Knights don't get to savor this one long. Vegas heads to Minnesota on Monday night to face the Wild — the start of a two-game road swing that continues Tuesday in Nashville — before returning home Thursday against Calgary. The Kings host Edmonton on Tuesday, still hunting their first win of the season.

More Vegas sports: the Knights are 4-0-0, the Aces are regrouping after a sweep, and the Raiders head to New England on Sunday. It's a full weekend on the Strip — and so far, the home teams are holding up their end.

More from the newsroom: the shootout comeback over Toronto · the 6-2 rout in Seattle · the season-opening win in Vancouver