What happens in Vegas Tavon Young Jersey , continues to happen in Vegas.

The NHL's Golden Knights are the toast of the town.

Erik Haula's goal in double overtime gave Vegas a 2-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Friday night for a 2-0 lead in their first-round playoff series.

"Honestly, I think that's my first overtime goal and I'm happy it came at this time; that's one of the best feelings in sports," Haula said. "Going into overtime we just stressed it in the locker room to just keep going after `em, to keep getting pucks behind `em, keep playing north, keep playing fast and I think we executed our game plan."

With less than five minutes on the clock in the second overtime, James Neal skated into the zone, looked past Alex Tuch and instead found a streaking Haula, who skated in on his own to beat goalie Jonathan Quick and send a towel-waving crowd of 18,588 into a frenzy.

"Obviously, he had the composure to hold the puck. I knew he was going to make that play. Maybe that helps we've been playing all year," Haula said of Neal. "I had good speed going to the net. … I was able to slide a five-hole, he reacted. I was coming in with a lot of speed, I got lucky and we got the win."

Game 3 in the best-of-seven Western Conference series is Sunday night in Los Angeles.

Tuch scored for expansion Vegas in regulation, and Paul LaDue had the Kings' goal.

Marc-Andre Fleury made 29 saves for the Golden Knights. Quick stopped 54 shots for the Kings.

"Such a relief at the end," said Fleury, who has allowed just one goal in a little more than 155 minutes over the first two games. "It was long Robbie Gould Jersey , it was hard. The guys did an awesome job again tonight. It was a good feeling to win at home in front of our fans."

The Golden Knights outshot Los Angeles in regulation, 35-20.

Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said Friday was a good example of why his scheme of playing four lines consistently all season is important, as his team continued to play with more pep while the Kings appeared fatigued as the second overtime wore on.

"Haula's a great skater. … Obviously that last goal, Haula's speed created a lot of that goal," said Gallant, who got the victory exactly one year after being hired as coach of the Golden Knights. "As coaches, all year long, we played four lines and that's what we do, so hopefully that paid off a little bit tonight. We played four lines most of the overtime, because when you play that much hockey, guys start to cramp up. It was tough on them. It was a great game, great battle and unbelievable for our fans tonight."

The Kings, meanwhile, played without suspended defenseman Drew Doughty, a Norris Trophy contender who led the NHL in total minutes this season. The league's Department of Player Safety handed down a one-game suspension after Doughty's illegal hit to the head on Vegas forward William Carrier midway through the third period of the Golden Knights' 1-0 series-opening victory Wednesday night.

Kings defenseman Oscar Fantenberg led the team with 53 shifts, while fellow defenseman Alec Martinez led the club with 44 minutes, 43 seconds on ice.

In contrast Max Unger Jersey , nobody on Vegas' roster played more than 38 minutes, with defenseman Nate Schmidt leading the Golden Knights at 37:19.

Game 1 featured 127 hits, including 68 by the Kings, and the rugged play continued in Game 2, with the same physical theme. Los Angeles outhit the Golden Knights 80-56 after the two combined for 113 in regulation.

"(Quick) gave us a chance to win like he always does," Kings coach John Stevens said. "A lot of guys played hard tonight, not just Jonny. We had some guys play real hard (to) give us a chance to win. Now we've got to go home to take care of business at home."

Vegas got on the board first after Jonathan Marchessault's shot went wide and caromed off the end boards. Tuch was in front of the net to clean it up for his first career playoff goal, on a power play, giving the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead late in the first period.

The Kings got their first goal of the series on a power play, when LaDue fired a wrist shot from the point to beat Fleury with 4:05 left in the second.

Both teams had their chances in the first overtime, but Fleury and Quick were magnificent between the pipes.

Through two games the teams have played 155 minutes, 16 seconds, and Fleury and Quick have allowed just four goals combined.

NOTES: Rock star Gwen Stefani, a Southern California native raised in Anaheim, was shown on the T-Mobile video board delivering a "Go Knights Go!" chant during the first period. … Fellow rock star Vince Neil got the crowd roaring to start the third period by winding up the air raid siren.

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By rule, any substitute checking into an NBA game must first report his intentions to the scorer's table. Denver's Jamal Murray was on his way there during a game last month, then got derailed when an errant pass came flying his way.

That's when referee Jason Phillips intervened.

Phillips could have easily been a stickler for rules and told Murray – who never made it to the table – that he had to wait until the next stoppage of play. But Phillips knew Murray was on his way to checking in long before the play was dead and allowed him to enter the game.

"Thank you Gabe Jackson Jersey ," Nuggets coach Michael Malone said, and Phillips nodded.

There were moments of civility like this between referees, players and coaches this season. They just were overshadowed way too often. Now everyone is watching to see how things unfold in the playoffs.

The league wants to avoid more headline-grabbing confrontation with the playoffs starting Saturday and stakes and emotion becoming even higher, so officials met with all 30 teams , the last of those on Monday.

"We all make mistakes," Toronto coach Dwane Casey said. "It's a game. We're all a part of it. We're all in the NBA. The officials are part of the NBA. So we have to understand that we're all under the same corporation."

There have been instances where they have looked more like combatants.

Referee Courtney Kirkland was taken off the floor for a week for getting too aggressive with Golden State's Shaun Livingston. Warriors star Kevin Durant – who'd been ejected once in his first nine seasons – got kicked out of five games. Even LeBron James got tossed for the first time in his 15-year career.

It all led the NBA to announce in late January its plan to improve how players and referees get along. Former referee Monty McCutchen, now an NBA vice president overseeing referee development and training, and NBA senior vice president Michelle Johnson met with clubs to listen to their perspective.

McCutchen's biggest hope is finding a way to make communication better, on all sides. He stressed to teams that he wasn't meeting with them solely to defend and protect officials.

"Our league needs strong officials," McCutchen said. "What we're trying to shoot for is this idea that you can have strength without arrogance and you can show humility without having to give into weakness. And that sort of Goldilocks moment, where the porridge is just right, is the balance in which we can start to disagree about the play without being demeaning or condescending or arrogant to one another."

That hasn't been the case at times this season.

It's rare that a call will truly decide a game, and the NBA is sticking to its pledge of transparency by continuing to release reports about calls made in the final two minutes of close games. The Last 2 Minute Reports have been widely panned by players and coaches, especially when those reports show that a big call didn't go their way in a close loss.

For the 400-plus games that have met the criteria for such a report being publicly issued this season, the NBA has said 97.4 percent of the calls made – in other words, 39 out of every 40 – are correct. When factoring in no-calls, what the NBA defines as "event accuracy" drops to 93.9 percent.

But there have also been some difficult moments.

Livingston and Kirkland butted heads in a game at Miami Patrick Mahomes II Jersey , earning the Warriors guard a one-game suspension and Kirkland's discipline after the league determined they were both in the wrong in their argument over a non-call. Through Sunday, there were 79 ejections this season – up considerably from the 61 last season. The NBA said 902 technicals were called last season; that figure has also been topped this season, albeit only by about 30.

Draymond Green, who isn't shy about getting technicals, has complained. So has Chris Paul, the president of the National Basketball Players Association.

"To be honest, we need to kind of just go out there and play, and not worry about anything but that," Toronto guard Kyle Lowry said. "We can't worry about what happened, even legitimately. We have to just go play and not say anything and just do our jobs. I think that'll be a focus for the rest of the season for our team."

But Lowry knows, starting Saturday, everything gets magnified.

"You can't get distracted or obsess on the officials or things that happen during the game that you can't necessarily control," Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. "You can't cross the line consistently and expect to develop the right mental toughness that you need to win."

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