The Vegas Golden Knights connected on 28.3% of their power-play chances during the regular season, which was second only to Winnipeg’s 28.9% in the NHL. Conversely, the Wild’s penalty kill ranked third-from-last in the league at 72.4%.

So, staying out of the penalty box would be key to Minnesota’s chances of winning Sunday night’s opener of the Western Conference quarterfinal series in Las Vegas.

It took the Golden Knights only six seconds of power-play time to exploit the statistical mismatch in a 4-2 victory at T-Mobile Arena.

With Wild center and key faceoff man Joel Eriksson Ek off for high sticking, Tomas Hertl won a faceoff against Frederick Gaudreau and sent the puck back to Shea Theodore. The defenseman slid to his right, faked a shot and passed to wide-open Pavel Dorofeyev at the right circle, and the Russian winger fired the puck past Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson for a 2-1 lead at 13:33 of the second.

The Wild got their only power play at 5:06 of the third period when Vegas defenseman Brayden McNabb was called for boarding Minnesota center Ryan Hartman. Vegas killed the penalty.

The Wild won 19 of 31 faceoffs in the first period, led by Eriksson Ek’s 9-4 showing. In the second, Minnesota went 10-5 in the dot, with Eriksson Ek winning seven of nine draws. And in the third, the Wild went 10-9 in the third to finish 39-26 (60%). Eriksson Ek was 5-4 in the third to finish 21-10 for the game (67.7%).