Golden Knights’ win over Hurricanes felt meaningful even early in the season

Vegas Golden Knights center Jack Eichel (9) celebrates with Vegas Golden Knights left wing Ivan Barbashev (49) and Vegas Golden Knights left wing Brandon Saad (20) after Eichel scores against the Carolina Hurricanes during the first period of a NHL hockey game at T-Mobile Arena, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. Photo by: Wade Vandervort

The Golden Knights passed their first major test of the new season with flying colors Monday night at T-Mobile Arena.

Vegas prevailed in its fourth straight game by outlasting Carolina for an 4-1 victory. The Hurricanes had won each of their previous five games with three of them coming by multiple goals to solidify their status as the early-season Stanley Cup favorite.

Rejoicing over a Golden Knights’ win in the seventh match of an 82-game regular season may sound unreasonable, but these are exactly the kind of showdowns they rarely found success in a year ago.

Vegas had much-publicized troubles with the best teams in the NHL last season, and Carolina made for a particularly strong example. The Hurricanes beat the Golden Knights in both meetings and came into Monday’s game riding a four-game winning streak in the series dating back to December 2023.

Vegas only led Carolina for about seven minutes of ice time during last year’s pair of games, but never trailed this time around.

Vegas’ usual suspects made sure of it.

Jack Eichel extended his NHL-lead with a 16^th point on the season at the 8:42 mark of the first period with the game’s first goal. Eichel appeared to attempt to fire a pass to linemate Ivan Barbashev off the rush on the other side of the ice, but the puck deflected off of Carolina defenseman K’Andre Miller and into the net.   

Eichel smirked as he celebrated his sixth goal of the season.

Everything has gone Eichel’s way to start the year, and the same could be said for teammate Pavel Dorofeyev, who added his own goal about a minute-and-a-half later.

The latest score looked quite a bit different than his first six of the season. Linemate Mitch Marner set up Dorofeyev on a breakaway by lacing a pass in between two defenders, and the NHL’s co-leader in goals scored did the rest.

Dorofeyev went right at Frederik Andersen, exercising great puck control  and deking his way into a backhanded goal that made the crowd gasp.

The goal almost surely stands as the highlight of the season so far for the Golden Knights.

Dorofeyev had a chance to score one of his more conventional power-play goals off a one-timer from the right faceoff circle in the second period, but Andersen got a glove on the puck.

The veteran Andersen played well with 21 saves on 24 shots on goal, but the Golden Knights were able to beat him just enough. Ivan Barbashev scored the final goal against Andersen from a similar point-blank range to Dorofeyev after Miller tripped on what could have been potentially whistled as a penalty.

Barbashev kneeled and flung his usual uppercut through the air to celebrate his goal.

The victory felt meaningful not only because of the opposition but because of how two big injuries went against the Golden Knights.

Coach Bruce Cassidy announced earlier in the day that captain Mark Stone, who trailed only Eichel entering Monday in the NHL with 13 points, was “week-to-week” with a wrist injury suffered in Saturday’s win over the Flames.

That caused a reshuffling of the lineup but it didn’t seem to bother the likes of Eichel, Marner and Dorofeyev — the latter of whom started a game together for the first time this season.

As if Stone’s absence wasn’t enough, goalie Adin Hill went down with a lower-body injury after dropping into a butterfly stance for a save in the first period. Akira Schmid entered in relief for the second time this season and stopped 23 of 24 shots he faced.

The defensive effort in front of him was strong but Schmid also turned away his share of high-danger chances including a breakaway by Miller.

Carolina star center Sebastian Aho scored the only goal on him through traffic in the second period.

The third period had a playoff-like atmosphere for the first time this season at T-Mobile as the teams traded attempts but emphasized stinginess. Barbashev’s goal loosened up the crowd, and then William Karlsson’s empty-netter at 18:23 sealed the victory for the Golden Knights.

Vegas has answered a lot of its criticisms from last year to start this season, namely with scoring outbursts from Eichel and Dorofeyev to quiet offensive concerns.

Add the knock that the Golden Knights can’t outplay fellow top-tier teams to that list. They handled the Hurricanes with relative ease despite circumstances stacked against them.

This is a developing story. Check back later for more coverage.