Adin Hill made 32 saves as the Vegas Golden Knights began defense of their Stanley Cup championship with a 4-1 victory over the Seattle Kraken at T-Mobile Arena.
"It was cool seeing the banner go up (in pregame). I haven't seen a banner with that much detail on it", Hill said. "We know what we did last year and we were ready to go tonight.
"You want to win every game, so it's one of 82. We got that one checked off the list, and now it's time to turn our attention."
Chandler Stephenson had a goal and an assist and Mark Stone had two assists for Vegas.
"We weren't on top of our game early", said Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy. "As I said, I'm not surprised. I figured we would get to it eventually when we were good enough.
"A lot of that had to do with Adin early. ...We got the saves early that we needed."
Jared McCann scored Seattle's only goal and Philipp Grubauer made 24 saves.
"There's no way we're going to let it go", Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol said. "We left something on the table today. I'm not disappointed with the overall effort. I think some individuals can have a better night. We've got to take some things out of this, improve on them, and get right back at it (against Nashville)."
Golden Knights celebrate championship with opening-night victory
Stephenson put Vegas in front 7:16 into the game as he cut to the net and finished on the rush after receiving a backdoor pass from Brett Howden.
Jonathan Marchessault made it 2-0 as he deflected an errant clearing pass by Brandon Tanev past Grubauer.
"We got a few fortunate bounces, which was awesome", Stone said. "It kind of got us into a bit of a groove and got the 2-0 lead and kind of settled us in.
"I don't think we were great for the first five, 10 minutes. But once we started settling in, I thought we took over the second half of the first."
Ivan Barbashev increased the Golden Knights lead to 3-0 as he took a stretch pass from Brayden McNabb and roofed his shot past Grubauer on the breakaway.
Seattle got on the board when Jordan Eberle's pass, intended for Justin Schultz, deflected off the skate of Marchessault and right to McCann, who scored off of Hill's left shoulder.
Jack Eichel scored into an empty net with 1:15 for the 4-1 final.
The win capped off a week of celebration as the team received their championship rings on Sunday and attended the Monday Night Football game between the Green Bay Packers and Las Vegas Raiders.
"We had a lot of things going on in your life, and try to enjoy what we accomplished and prepare for a season. So you try to balance both", Eichel said.
"It's an amazing experience to watch a banner go up. You want to enjoy every moment."