from Ed Graney of the Las Vegas Review-Journal,

The names of the dead were emblazoned on ice and a second ticked away for each one on the video screen high above.

For a heartbreaking 58 of them in the silent darkness of T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday night, we were again reminded about a sanctuary that has been known to offer refuge from the brutality of terror.

It’s just sports and, by God, it isn’t.

If sorrow and gloom is part of the healing process for Las Vegas to eventually emerge from under the menacing cloud that has immersed the city since those horrifying 10 minutes Sunday evening, so, too, is the opportunity for a community to gather and celebrate what can be a needed distraction.

No one could have imagined the first home game in the history of the Golden Knights would be defined by such a mournful cause, but as it has so many times in the worst of moments, sports proved to be the most powerful of remedies.

“We were trying to thank the town and bring the town together,” Knights owner Bill Foley said. “We wanted to show Vegas that we really are a part of the community.”

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added 9:28am, from Nicholas J. Cotsonika of NHL.com,

Fifty-eight seconds. That was the length of the moment of silence at the Vegas Golden Knights' inaugural home opener Tuesday.

Fifty-eight seconds, one for each person killed at the Route 91 Harvest Festival of country music on Oct. 1 by the gunman on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay, just down the Strip from T-Mobile Arena.

The wait forced you to feel the weight. As the scoreboard counted, you were confronted by how much was lost in the worst mass shooting in American history. But as you looked around, you were comforted by something else.

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Below, watch highlights from the VGK 5-2 win over the Arizona Coyotes.