Lawless And Order: January 23 Edition

There was no, "first place, baby," talk as the Vegas Golden Knights slipped out of Raleigh on Sunday night. Rather, there was talk of not having accomplished anything this season. Accuse them of being greedy, if you will, but the Golden Knights want more.
And while first place overall in the NHL, expansion team or not, is a good feeling - it can be fleeting. The feeling for the Golden Knights lasted just one day, as the Tampa Bay Lightning wrested top spot in the league back into their clutches with a 2-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday night.
All is fluid at this juncture of the NHL season and while the Presidents' Trophy would like nice on the mantle - it's not the prize anyone in the NHL pursues.
Talk of trophies for Vegas or any other team is premature. Heightened parity in today's NHL makes for tough games every night of the schedule. Teams that were out of the playoffs altogether on January 1 are now in and teams fighting for division leads when the month dawned are now out. Parity is a cold bedmate and not shy about yanking away the blankets or even kicking one off the mattress altogether.
Vegas, and any other team interested in reaching the post-season, would do well to keep winning.

Veteran winger James Neal says being in first place at this point of the season means nothing in terms of the result. But does say something about the process.
"It means we're playing some great hockey, that's for sure. We're consistent and that's hard to do in this league. There's obviously a lot of parity. There's great teams every night and it's a great challenge every night," said Neal. "We're up for that challenge each and every game. That's probably the most impressive thing about our club. You know what you're going to get every night from every single line and every single player. They go out there and do their job. I like having that feeling going into games. We have a winning feeling. We built a team that has a mindset that we're going to go out and win the game no matter what happens. I like the way that we're going right now. We'll continue to grow as the season goes on here. In the one goal games and in the third periods, we'll continue to be better."
Without further delay, here is the latest installment of our semi-regular trip around the VGK globe.
1. It was midway through the third period of Sunday's 5-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes when the text came in from a friend who happens to be a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins: "Can we have (Marc-Andre) Fleury back."
With a fair degree of certainty, we're confident there is no need to check with GM George McPhee on this one. The answer is no.
2. Fleury has been brilliant and now leads the NHL with a .946 save percentage with an 11-3-2 record. He's having the best season of his career at age 33. He was billed as the cornerstone selection for Vegas at the expansion draft and he has lived up to the expectations and more. It's interesting to note, Fleury had the best two regular seasons of his career prior to the .909 he posted last year in 38 regular season games. Lack of work and the inability to get in a rhythm may have affected his work and saw his save percentage dip from the .920 and .921 of the two previous campaigns. When he took over the No. 1 job for the first two rounds of last year's Stanley Cup playoffs, his save percentage rebounded to .924.
3. James Neal scored his 20th goal of the season on Friday night in Florida, and has now scored at least 20 goals in all 10 of his NHL seasons. Only 135 NHL players, including Neal, have reached this mark. Neal is also among a list of six active NHL players who have scored 20 goals in the first 10 seasons of their NHL careers.
4. Neal on his 20th: "I've been fortunate enough to play with great players along the way and to learn and to grow. This is a goal I'll remember. (Erik) Haula made a great pass and I got the guy spinning around and I found the back of the net. It was a good feeling. It tied the game. But we wanted to win this game pretty badly. Still we got the one point. Would have been better to get two."
Neal scored his 21st in Sunday's win over Carolina.
5. Neal scoring three goals in his last three games coincides with David Perron getting hot but it's no coincidence. They have a symbiotic relationship and Perron has two goals and two assists in his last give games. "I love playing with James," said Perron. "I like to hold the puck and he likes to shoot it. It might be the best partnership I've had in my career. (Erik) Haula has speed and he pushes the D back and creates space for our line. James is such a good shooter. You hear players talk about taking away time and space from offensive players. That's hard to do with James. He's a big man and creates his own space with his size. And he doesn't need time. He gets his shot off so quickly."

6. Take two D off most NHL bluelines and big trouble usually ensues. Luca Sbisa and Jon Merrill are injured but Vegas coach Gerard Gallant has the luxury of being able to insert Brad Hunt. Hunt played 16:11 in Sunday's win and had an assist. He's low maintenance and can move the puck. There's no drop off when he goes in. McPhee signed him as a free agent on July 1 to little fanfare but it was an excellent pickup in terms of depth insurance.
   7. Colin Miller registered the first three-point game of his career and now has six goals and 24 points - both are career highs. Just as importantly - Miller is gaining consistency in his game and playing with bite. He competes for pucks down low in the defensive zone and is rounding out his game.
   8. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare picked up his fifth goal of the season on Sunday while playing 14:01 centering the fourth line. Bellemare has worked between Will Carrier and Tomas Nosek for most of this season and they rank third in the NHL among fourth lines in Corsi For at 53 percent and in goal differential at plus 4.
   9. Carrier can skate and he's very strong on the puck. He's developing the ability to cut to the net with the puck from his wing and he's a handful one-on-one for lots of NHL defenders. Just 23 and finally getting consistent NHL ice time - he's growing as a player.
   10. William Karlsson now has 25 goals on the season which puts him sixth in the league in goals but just four back of the lead leader - Alex Ovechkin.

11. Stats, stats and more stats. Here's where Vegas ranks in a handful of categories:
    Goal differential - 30 (3rd)
    Goals for - 150 (4th)
    Goals against - 120 (6th)
    PP - 17.3% (22nd)
    PK - 81.6% (16th)
    SOG - 1481 (16th)
    SOG Allowed - 1369 (4th)
    SOG differential - 112 (6th)
    Goals for per game - 3.37 (3rd)
    Goals against per game - 2.63 (6th)
    12. For a long time, NHL GMs have espoused the value of having their roster grow together. Draft the players, have them come up through the AHL together, take their early lumps in the NHL together and ultimately succeed as a group in the NHL. What Vegas is doing flies in the face of this concept. Throwing a group of players together with only a few ties from previous teams on the roster and then getting the results Vegas has come by is a testament to the type of people on the team and the leadership of Gerard Gallant. Neal says it often, "we play for one another and we play for Gerard." It's authentic and it can't be manufactured. It has to be organic. Certainly, there's some mystery to how this has happened. It can't be easily explained or encapsulated in one catchall theory. But Gallant has pushed the right buttons and it's made for a fast forming team. It's been a masterful coaching job. The Golden Knights are among the most disciplined teams in the NHL, they are a top-five team in the NHL when it comes to on-ice structure and they work hard while holding one another accountable.