Marc-Andre Fleury steals opening-night win from the Stars

DALLAS — The Dallas Stars lost their season-opening game to the expansion Vegas Golden Knights 2-1 on Friday.

At first glance it’s a disappointment — expansion teams aren’t supposed to win their first game and the Stars are supposed to be a contender in the Western Conference this season.

But taking a deeper look, there was a lot to like from the Stars.

Dallas was the better team for 60 minutes. They outshot the Golden Knights 46 to 30, controlled possession, and generated quality scoring chances throughout the night. In the end, Marc-Andre Fleury stole the game with a 45-save performance.

Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant said it best when he commented after the game that “It was a 2-1 hockey game, but it was really a 5-4 hockey game.”

Bishop is fine

Ben Bishop left the game after getting cut on a high shot by Reilly Smith with 16 minutes remaining.

Bishop made 19 saves before leaving the game and was replaced by Lehtonen, who made nine saves on 11 shots.

Bishop returned to the Stars bench with roughly eight minutes remaining, but Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said the team had to follow concussion protocol and couldn’t put the goalie back in the game.

Hitchcock did say that Bishop would be fine tomorrow.

The goals

Second period

17:01 Tyler Seguin scored on the power play with a deflection after a slap pass from Jamie Benn. Stars 1, Golden Knights 0

Third period

10:27 James Neal scored the first goal in Vegas history when his wrist shot deflected off Radek Faksa and past Kari Lehtonen. Golden Knights 1, Stars 1

17:16 Cody Eakin setup James Neal for the game-winning goal, which featured impressive balance from Neal to stay upright on one knee and flip a shot over Lehtonen. Golden Knights 2, Stars 1

Sick goal for James Neal to give Vegas the lead pic.twitter.com/Efww8ciHjk

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) October 7, 2017

Golden Knights lineup

Reilly Smith — Jonathan Marchessault — Oscar Lindberg
David Perron — Cody Eakin — James Neal
William Karlsson — Erik Haula — Brendan Leipsic
Tomas Nosek — Pierre-Edouard Bellemare — William Carrier

Brayden McNabb — Deryk Engelland
Colin Miller — Jason Garrison
Lucas Sbisa — Nate Schmidt

Marc-Andre Fleury
Malcolm Subban

Scratched: Griffin Reinhart, Jon Merrill, Brad Hunt

Stars lineup

Jamie Benn — Tyler Seguin — Alexander Radulov
Mattias Janmark — Jason Spezza — Brett Ritchie
Devin Shore — Martin Hanzal — Tyler Pitlick
Antoine Roussel — Radek Faksa — Gemel Smith

Esa Lindell — John Klingberg
Marc Methot — Jamie Oleksiak
Dan Hamhuis — Stephen Johns

Ben Bishop
Kari Lehtonen

Scratched: Adam Cracknell, Greg Pateryn, Julius Honka