Brayden McNabb is known for his defensive reliability, but the Vegas Golden Knights defenseman has been driving the offense lately. On Sunday against the Dallas Stars, he scored a stunning coast-to-coast goal that ignited a much-needed 4-2 victory.

McNabb collected a wall pass from Keegan Kolesar near his own net, skated through traffic, and beat goaltender Casey DeSmith. The goal was his fourth of the season and first at even strength since Dec. 29. It came just 24 hours after he took a puck to the throat in a 4-1 loss at Nashville.

“I mean, I’ve been getting a lot of chances,” McNabb said. “It’s nice to see one finally go in. I’ve been shooting the puck quite a bit, so it’s good to get rewarded.”

McNabb has 32 shots on goal since the Olympic break, third most on the team behind Jack Eichel and Pavel Dorofeyev. Fellow defensemen Shea Theodore, Rasmus Andersson and Noah Hanifin have combined for 58 shots in that span. Coach Bruce Cassidy has called for more offense from everyone as the Knights have struggled to score.

“I thought we deserved to win (Saturday in Nashville), but what I think doesn’t matter,” Cassidy said. “There’s been a few times this year I walked out of the rink and thought, ‘Geez, I thought we played really well. We deserved to win and we lost by three goals.'”

The Knights have controlled shot totals and expected goals in their last five games but have only two wins to show for it. Sunday’s expected goals of 3.88 suggested they were finally rewarded for their play. McNabb’s goal was a prime example of the defensemen getting pucks to the net from low-to-high action to create rebounds.

“You just don’t want to get too ahead of yourself,” McNabb said. “We have to go into Winnipeg. They’re not great in the standings, but they’re still a good team.”

The Knights face the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday at Canada Life Centre.