Golden Knights vs. Senators: Raphael Lavoie's First NHL Goal Breaks the Tie and Ends Vegas' Skid

Raphael Lavoie started Tuesday expecting to watch. By the end of the night he had the game-winning goal, the first of his NHL career, in his 27th game.

Lavoie broke a 1-1 tie at 8:01 of the third period, Adin Hill made 25 saves plus a highlight-reel dash out of his net, and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Ottawa Senators 4-1 to snap a three-game losing streak. William Karlsson and Jack Eichel tacked on empty-netters to make the final look more comfortable than the night actually felt.

"I wasn't thinking of playing tonight," Lavoie said. "I wasn't in the lineup, and then suddenly, just before I left the rink, they told me I was playing."

Thirty-Nine Minutes of Nothing, Then Everything

For most of two periods, this was a game of near misses. Brett Howden's interference minor late in the first gave Ottawa a power play, and Artem Zub's interference call in the second gave Vegas one. Neither team did anything with them.

Then the final two minutes of the middle frame got weird in the best way. Michael Amadio was called for holding at 18:11, putting Vegas on the power play, and Ottawa's Ridly Greig still managed to get loose on a shorthanded breakaway. Hill did not wait for him. He sprinted out to the faceoff dot, won the race to the puck and snapped his stick in the collision, according to NHL.com.

Vegas went the other way, and Braeden Bowman cleaned up the rebound of an Ivan Barbashev shot from the right circle with 11 seconds left in the period. Shea Theodore had the secondary assist.

"That was definitely the flying butterfly," Bowman said of Hill. "Great awareness from him, smart play, and then it ended up getting an odd-man rush for us. He kind of took the hit to make a play."

A Scrum, a Response and a Rookie Moment

The period ended with a scrum. At the 20:00 mark, Dylan Cozens, Barbashev and Jeremy Lauzon were all sent off for roughing, with Lauzon's extra minor handing Ottawa a power play to open the third. The Senators needed 34 seconds. Drake Batherson pounced on a stray pass near the blue line, carried it up the wall and hit Shane Pinto in full flight through the middle. Pinto did the rest, beating Hill to tie it 1-1.

That made it six straight games in which Vegas has allowed a power-play goal, per the AP. Not ideal.

The Turning Point: The Kid Delivers

At 8:01 of the third, Lavoie got his moment. The goal came off a rush, with Nic Dowd and Ville Heinola getting the assists, and it put Vegas ahead for good. Dowd's assist was the 200th point of his career, according to the AP.

Ottawa got one more good chance to answer when Lauzon was called for kneeing Warren Foegele at 9:38, but the Golden Knights killed it off. From there, Vegas blocked everything in sight and waited for Ottawa to pull Jonas Johansson. Karlsson scored into the empty net at 18:00, with Trevor Connelly and Mitch Marner assisting, and Eichel added another at 19:53 off a Mark Stone feed.

Lavoie stayed humble about the breakthrough. "There's certain things that you have to do to get opportunities to score goals," he said. "I was more worried on doing those things rather than just thinking I have to score a goal every time I'm on the ice."

Who Showed Up

Hill was the story behind the story. He stopped 25 of 26 shots for a .962 save percentage, and the breakaway play on Greig directly led to the opening goal. Coach Ryan Craig was a fan of both of his surprise heroes. "'Hilly' was real good," Craig said. "As for 'Lavy' he takes advantage of an opportunity. Sometimes that's what happens, right? You don't think about it. You just go out and play."

Lavoie scored in just 8:20 of ice time. Eichel's empty-netter was his seventh goal of the season, Bowman's power-play goal was his third, and Karlsson chipped in three blocked shots with his empty-netter. Stone, Marner, Connelly, Barbashev, Theodore, Dowd and Heinola all finished with an assist.

For Ottawa, Pinto logged a heavy 23:06 and scored his third goal, and Batherson's assist extended his point streak to five games, with eight points in that stretch. Johansson made 25 saves on 27 shots and kept the Senators within one until the empty-netters.

"We had our chances, just didn't convert," Pinto said. "You've got to just trust the process and hope that it goes in next time."

The Numbers That Matter

• 24-6. Vegas blocked 24 shots. Ottawa blocked six. That gap is the game in a nutshell.
• 1-for-2 vs. 1-for-3. Both teams scored once on the power play.
• 24-14. Ottawa won the hits battle, and the Golden Knights committed 24 giveaways, so this was hardly a clean Vegas performance.
• 52.8 percent. Ottawa won the faceoff battle, 28-25.
• Two empty-netters. Senators coach Travis Green noticed. "It's a 2-1 game with two empty-netters. Pretty good," he said.

What It Means

Vegas improves to 9-4-1 with 19 points and 6-2-0 at home, and the Golden Knights had gone 0-2-1 in their previous three, including back-to-back 6-2 losses to Tampa Bay and St. Louis. Getting a goal from a player who was not supposed to dress is the kind of thing that can jump-start a group.

Ottawa falls to 8-5-0 with 16 points and 3-3-0 on the road. This was the opener of a five-game trip, per the AP, coming off a 7-4 home win over the Rangers on Saturday. Green did not sound panicked. "You're not going to come into a building like this and dominate the whole game," he said.

The Understudy Steals the Show

Las Vegas runs on headliners and residencies, the big names whose faces are plastered all over the Strip. Every so often, though, the understudy gets the call an hour before showtime and brings the house down. Lavoie found out he was playing on his way out of the rink. A few hours later, he had his first NHL goal and the game-winner. Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Postgame quotes as reported by NHL.com; additional details from the Associated Press.