Believe it or not, the Vegas Golden Knights are just three points out from being the No. 1 team in the NHL halfway through their inaugural season.

The Golden Knights used another gutsy effort on Sunday night to get by the New York Rangers by a score of 2-1. With the win, the club has now gone 14-1-1 in its last 16 games and has become the second team to hit the 60-point threshold.

After 41 games, Vegas is on pace to finish with 120 points. With a start like this it's no longer a hot take to suggest that the Golden Knights will be playing playoff hockey this spring.

With the playoffs now on the horizon, the question is shifting to: What will the team do as it approaches its first-ever trade deadline? Generally, a team in Vegas' position would be in the market to buy potential rentals in an attempt to bolster its lineup.

However, with Vegas still in its infancy, a clear plan in place, and no glaring holes on its roster, it makes more sense for the club to stand pat and not make any moves it might regret later.

When general manager George McPhee set out to construct the Golden Knights' roster he made it imperative that he not only load up on younger, skilled, roster players, but to also stockpile his cupboard with a load of prospects and draft picks (a perfect example of which are first-round picks Cody Glass and Nick Suzuki).

Last June, the team made 12 selections at the draft. Going forward, the Golden Knights have 28 picks over the next three years.

As most GMs could tell you, the price to pay to acquire rental players at the deadline is usually prospects, draft picks, or both. For Vegas to part ways with these pieces for a monetary gain makes little sense, especially when you consider how well the team has played to date.

Related: Vegas odds tab Lightning, Golden Knights as Stanley Cup favorites

The team found chemistry almost immediately and it's led to the Golden Knights posting the second-most potent offense in the league, averaging 3.44 goals per game. On the other side, Vegas has given up 2.71 goals per game, good enough for the 11th-best mark. Despite their special teams being middle of the pack, it hasn't particularly hampered the club in anyway. Then there is the fantastic duo of Marc-Andre Fleury and Malcolm Subban manning the pipes.

It makes little sense to mess with a winning formula. And in his short tenure, McPhee has shown he's not going to make any critical moves that could jeopardize the team's future.

Ahead of free agency last July, McPhee made it clear that his team wouldn't be very active as it's usually the time of the year where teams overpay for players. Then, after the Golden Knights went through a carousel of goalies with injuries to Fleury, Subban, and Oscar Dansk, McPhee said he wasn't going to have a knee-jerk reaction and trade for a goalie. Instead, he elected to wait out the storm - which now looks to have been the smart choice.

"The plan going into this year was pretty simple: If we're in the hunt, we're going to try and stay in the hunt, if you're not in the hunt, you do what teams that are not in the hunt do at the trading deadline," McPhee told Sportsnet's Hockey Central at Noon last week. "We'll see where we are when we get there. And what happens between now and then will be determined as we go along.

"We wanted to be competitive this year. We thought it was really important to the league. We thought it was important to the market - we wanted to give the market a chance. Can we be competitive and see how people respond here? Well it has been pretty darn good here and you don't ever want to lose that. We're trying to set a standard."

The Golden Knights couldn't have written a better script to this season if they tried. They worked the expansion draft to perfection by creating a model roster that's been producing from the back end on out, they've stockpiled talent in their system, and - without a ton of tinkering - the team leads the Western Conference.

They should be able to compete without any additions. Doing so would keep Vegas' current roster intact and more importantly keeps its future pieces in the fold.

Last November, owner Bill Foley stated he hopes to win a Stanley Cup within the team's first six years. Standing pat gives the Golden Knights the best chance at winning now while maintaining potential sustained success to do so in the future.

(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)

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Tampa Bay Lighting defenseman Dan Girardi has escaped serious injury after taking a one-timer from Detroit Red Wings forward Martin Frk to the back of the neck on Sunday.

After being evaluated, all tests came back negative and the 33-year-old is day to day, the team announced.

The Lightning are back in action on Tuesday when they host the Carolina Hurricanes.

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Solid production has earned Patrice Bergeron, Jonathan Bernier, and Sidney Crosby the league's Three Stars of the Week.

The Boston Bruins forward claimed top spot on the back of his first career four-goal game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday. In all, Bergeron led the league this week with five goals in three games while chipping in two assists. Bergeron has also been instrumental in the Bruins' current 11-game point streak that has seen them go 8-0-3. Boston now occupies the second spot in the Atlantic Division.

Bernier earned second star honors after going 3-0-0 with a 1.60 goals-against average, a .957 save percentage, and a shutout. The perfect week helped propel the Colorado Avalanche into a playoff spot, having won five straight games. Meanwhile, the club has already matched their win total from last season.

Crosby rounds out the three stars having picked up a league-high seven assists and eight points in four games. The Pittsburgh Penguins captain concluded the week with four- and three-point games, snapping a streak of 12 games without multiple points.

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On Monday, Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli made it known he has no intentions of firing head coach Todd McLellan.

That being said, the team has lost six of its last seven games, and, after reaching the second round of the postseason last year, sit eight points out of the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

The Oilers also sit 22nd in goals per game, are tied for 26th in goals against per game, have the 24th-best power play, and rank dead last in penalty-kill proficiency.

Something needs to be done in Edmonton if the team is to turn things around. Is Chiarelli making the right choice by keeping McLellan?

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Coaching is not the Edmonton Oilers' issue in the eyes of general manager Peter Chiarelli.

With his club spiraling out of control, having lost six of its last seven contests, Chiarelli insists he has not considered making changes behind the bench.

"I have no intentions of firing Todd (McLellan). I want to work with the coach, and I think he's a very good coach," Chiarelli said, according to Sportsnet's Mark Spector. "As far as Todd goes, and (his staff), I am not considering firing them. At this point we're going to solve it together."

Related: Oilers stuck in another skid after showing brief glimmer of hope

Of course, with the team currently sitting eight points out of the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference - after reaching the second round on the back of the fourth-best record in the West last season - Chiarelli understands that his job could be just as much in jeopardy as the head coach's.

"Everyone is under evaluation, including myself," Chiarelli said. "We've had our challenges from a coaching perspective, and we've had our challenges from a player personnel perspective. We went into the season with certain expectations, and we're not even close to them.

"I see the situation we're in. I see levels of improvement, but I also see the losses piling up," Chiarelli said. "There's a plan in place, and a plan to bring up through the ranks, at the proper time, younger players."

With a potential plan to give a chance to younger players and the coach's job safe for the time being, it will be interesting to see if that means changes will come to the current roster.

Until then this Oilers club will need to figure a way to climb from the depths of the Western Conference if it has any aspirations of salvaging the season.

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Warning: Story contains coarse language

Tuukka Rask wasn't kind to himself after coming out on the losing end of a wild overtime defeat to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday night.

The Boston Bruins goaltender offered a blunt assessment of his play in the 6-5 loss when asked about it postgame.

"I was horseshit all day," Rask said, according to Joe McDonald of Boston Sports Journal. "All night I felt like shit and didn't see the puck. I wasn't sharp ... (I let in) weak goals."

The veteran netminder allowed all six of the Penguins' goals on 35 shots, including one to Evgeni Malkin in the waning moments of the second period, an unassisted marker by Riley Sheahan - who now has only six goals in his last 115 games - in the third frame, and then Malkin's overtime winner.

Rask had given up only four goals in his previous five contests coming into Sunday's affair, and he's been solid for most of the first half of this season, posting a .920 save percentage in 27 appearances including the high-scoring loss to Pittsburgh.

He'll have some time to rest up now, as the Bruins are on their bye week until Saturday when they return to action for a road date with the Montreal Canadiens.

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There was a scary moment in Detroit on Sunday night.

Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Dan Girardi was struck in the head by a Martin Frk one-timer in the second period against the Red Wings.

Girardi laid on the ice for several minutes and needed help getting off before going straight to the dressing room.

He was later ruled out for the rest of the game, but the Lightning said initial reports indicated he was okay

Girardi had opened the scoring earlier in the contest, and also assisted on Tyler Johnson's goal.

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