Somebody said we’re in first place, is that official? Perfect. -Gerrard Gallant

May have taken 20 games to get there, but these guys have been a first place team all year. (Photo Credit: Shawn Hickey, @VGK_UltimateFan)

The Vegas Golden Knights are in first place in the Pacific Division. Coach knows it, players know it, everyone knows it.

It’s great. I definitely know there were a lot of people who doubted us coming into this year, but we’re sticking to the game plan, we know we’ve got a great team and we are just going to keep going. -Shea Theodore

The word “surprise” is consistently going to be attached to this team. To the Golden Knights and anyone who’s been paying attention, they are no surprise.

Before the season if you told me we would be in first place before at this time of the year I may have said that’s a bit of a stretch, but the way our team plays and competes every night I don’t think it’s a surprise. -Gallant

I’m not surprised. Every practice we practice hard. You can see this group to win so bad and it translates to every game we’ve played. It’s not a big surprise to me but I see how it can be to people outside this room. -Maxime Lagace

Not only are the Golden Knights in first place, they have a game in hand on all but one team in the division. They have two more non-shootout wins (the first tiebreaker) than everyone else. They are playing at a 1.35 points per game pace (111 point projection), the next closest in the Pacific is 1.19 (98 point projection). And finally, they have an astounding 10-1-0 record against the Western Conference including 5-1-0 against the Pacific Division.

We’ve been playing great and it’s been fun. It’s still early in the season but if we can continue playing like we have been there’s no reason we can’t push for a playoff spot. -William Karlsson

I don’t want to say no (I never envisioned this team being in first place this deep in the season) because you come in to a team and you want to win, you want to compete to make the playoffs. When I started seeing the guys, I thought there’s no reason we shouldn’t be competitive, we said that from day one. -James Neal

Now time for some coach cliches about how they stay there!

We look forward to the next game. We know there’s a lot of the season left. Are we happy to be where we are at, definitely. But we know if we let off the gas a little bit we won’t be anywhere near there. It’s nice to be there and a surprise to be there for a lot of people, but the guys think we are a good team. -Gallant

No matter how you slice it, the Golden Knights are a surprise. Even the most optimistic prognosticators couldn’t have imagined this at the quarter pole of the season. But yet here we are, 20 games in, in first place all alone, and what’s really surprising now is expecting them to ever give it up.