Riding a hot hand: Why the Golden Knights should stand pat at trade deadline

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)