Golden Knights vs. Maple Leafs: Trevor Connelly's Shootout Winner Caps a Three-Goal Comeback

Eight minutes and 37 seconds into Thursday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs had scored three times, Adin Hill looked like a man who had wandered into the wrong building, and T-Mobile Arena was doing that nervous early-season shuffle. By the end, the Leafs had not scored again in more than 56 minutes of hockey, and a rookie had the final word.

Trevor Connelly beat Sergei Bobrovsky in the fifth round of the shootout, Hill denied John Tavares, and the Vegas Golden Knights erased a three-goal deficit for a 4-3 shootout win over Toronto. Jack Eichel scored on a penalty shot and added an assist as Vegas won its third straight.

Toronto's Blitz

The Leafs, playing their first road game of the season, came out like they had a flight to catch. Jack Roslovic opened the scoring 34 seconds in, squeezing a backhand in from the goal line, with Auston Matthews and Kirill Marchenko assisting. According to the AP, it came in Roslovic's 600th career game and was his 300th career point. NHL.com added that it was the second-fastest goal to start a road opener for the Maple Leafs, behind only Stew Gavin's goal at 0:27 in Edmonton on Oct. 5, 1983.

Easton Cowan slipped behind the Vegas defense and finished a breakaway at 3:20, with Chris Tanev credited with the assist. Nick Paul pushed it to 3-0 at 8:37, with Darren Raddysh and Gavin McKenna assisting.

Three goals on Hill in under nine minutes. For a minute there, Toronto looked like the team running away with the plot.

The Turning Point: Stone Starts It, Eichel Finishes It

The comeback began before intermission. At 17:36 of the first, Mark Stone wired a slap shot past Bobrovsky's glove hand, with Eichel and Ivan Barbashev assisting. It sounds like a footnote in a 3-1 game. Vegas coach Ryan Craig did not see it that way.

"That was a big moment of the game," Craig said. "'Stoney' gets a big goal there for us."

The Golden Knights then flipped the game in a 2:46 span early in the second. Brett Howden drove to the far post and redirected a Mitch Marner pass off his foot at 1:12, with William Karlsson also assisting.

"Lucky enough to hit 'Howie' on the foot there," Marner said.

At 3:57, Morgan Rielly tripped Eichel on a breakaway, and Eichel was awarded a penalty shot. One second of game clock later, at 3:58, Eichel beat Bobrovsky with a wrist shot to tie it 3-3. The next 41 minutes, overtime included, produced no goals, and then came the shootout.

Shootout Roulette

Braeden Bowman scored in the first round for Vegas, and Marchenko answered for Toronto. Then came a long stretch of nothing. Eichel missed wide, Hill stopped Matthews, Shea Theodore missed, Hill stopped William Nylander, Marner missed wide and McKenna missed wide.

Then Connelly, the rookie, stepped up in the fifth round and buried it on the backhand. Tavares had one last chance to extend it, and Hill stopped him. Toronto finished 1 for 5 against Hill in the shootout.

Per NHL.com, Connelly became the third Golden Knights rookie to score a game-deciding goal in a shootout, joining Alex Tuch and Paul Cotter.

Eichel Keeps Cooking, Bobrovsky Keeps Toronto Alive

Eichel is playing like a man trying to win a scoring title by Halloween. He finished with a goal and an assist in 26:38, extending his season-opening point streak to five games. Per the box score, the penalty-shot goal was his third of the season, and the AP noted he has three goals and 12 points through five games.

"To see Jack go on fire, it's fun to watch," Barbashev said. "He's an outstanding player, and he's a leader for us."

Hill recovered from the early barrage to finish with 21 saves on 24 shots, and Toronto never solved him again after the first period. At the other end, Bobrovsky was the main reason this reached a shootout at all. He made 40 saves on 43 shots as Vegas pounded away, and he sounded content with the point.

"It's a big point for us on the road against a good team," Bobrovsky said. "We had a good start then things kind of got away from us a little bit."

Matthews was dominant in the dot, winning 15 of 21 faceoffs, and Toronto won 59.7 percent of the draws overall. It just did not translate into many shots.

Stats That Matter

• 43-24: Shots on goal, Vegas over Toronto. The Golden Knights outshot the Leafs by 19.
• 0 for 4: Vegas on the power play, its first game this season without a power-play goal, per the AP.
• 27-13: Hits, Golden Knights over Maple Leafs.
• Fifth: This was the fifth three-goal comeback win in Golden Knights franchise history, per NHL.com.
• 1 for 5: Toronto's shootout shooters against Hill.

What It Means

Vegas improves to 4-1-0 and 2-1-0 at home with its third straight win. The Golden Knights have now shown they can win a game in which nothing goes right for the first 10 minutes, which is a useful trait in October and an essential one in April. Marner had the simplest summary.

"We're a resilient team," Marner said. "We stayed with it."

Toronto falls to 2-2-1, and this one will sting because the first period was close to perfect. The Leafs got three goals in under nine minutes and then went cold for the rest of the night. Cowan, who had a goal in 14:00 of ice time, pointed at the middle frame.

"We would have liked a better second," Cowan said. "Thought the third was a bit better."

Toronto visits Colorado on Saturday, and Vegas hosts Los Angeles the same night.

The Takeaway

Blowing a 3-0 lead is the hockey version of leaving your phone on the roof of the car and driving off. You know exactly when it happened, and you replay it the whole ride home. Toronto will replay Stone's late first-period goal and that 2:46 burst to start the second. Vegas, meanwhile, keeps finding new ways to win, and the newest one came off the stick of a rookie in the fifth round of a shootout.

Bobrovsky took the long view, and he is not wrong. A point is a point. But the Golden Knights got two, and the way they got them says a lot about who they are.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details from the Associated Press and NHL.com; postgame quotes as reported by NHL.com.