The right-winger was in irrepressible form, scoring once and driving the visitors on after Argyle went ahead through, first, Rory Fallon and then Marcel Seip.
In driving rain that did not let up from beginning to end, Fallon gave the Pilgrims the lead in the seventh, latching on to former Wolves goalkeeper Graham Stack's punt which caught on the wind.
As the Wolves defence got caught out by the bounce, Fallon volleyed the ball home over Wayne Hennessey with his left foot.
Wolves levelled with 12 minutes when Kightly timed his run to perfection to sweep home a right-wing cross from Kevin Foley that was missed by Argyle defender Mathias Doumbe.
The Pilgrims went ahead again 11 minutes after half-time when Dutch defender Seip took advantage of more hesitancy in the Wolves defence to lash home a dropping ball following Chris Clark's corner.
Seip was playing his first game since walking out on the team for refusing to be substitute against Charlton towards the end of last season. He has since apologised to his colleagues and been taken off the transfer-list.
Wolves were kept at bay by Stack, sometimes luckily and sometimes superbly by man of the match Stack.
Returning former Argyle striker Sylvan Ebanks-Blake missed a sitter which allowed George Elokobi to have a close-range shot that hit Stack on the arm.
Then Stack saved well at near post after Kightly had swept the ball into Ebanks-Blake's feet.
From the corner, Stack palmed aside Elokobi's point-blank header and then blocked a second attempt from the Wolves defender.
The damn was eventually breached when Wolves substitutes Chris Iwelumo and Sam Vokes swapped passes at pace to allow former Bournemouth man Vokes to score with his first touch, barely a minute after coming on.
Argyle had given a debut to five players, including defender Chris Barker, signed from QPR on Saturday morning. Barker nearly did not make the start as he was unable to remove a ring from his finger.
In the end, the ring was hack-sawed off by a team-mate, allowing Barker to take the field seconds before the start.