David Quinn spoke after practice today and said the following (NYR):

• On Cody McLeod being a week away, “is that what Dr. McLeod says…? That is good to know. I must have missed in his bio that he went to Med School. I haven’t talked to the doctors yet, today was day one.”
• What have you missed without Cody, “energy for sure, people talk about the physical part of his game but you just see what he brings from an energy standpoint, his personality. He has a lot of the things that we are short of and he does a good job on the forecheck and structurally. We do miss him big time on and off the ice.”
• On the last game, “the first two periods weren’t great periods for anyone, tough hockey to watch but in the third we were better, more aggressive, decisive and doing the things we need to do to have success. That has been a big problem for us, hope plays and decision making and patience with the puck. If we can clean that up we will have it more and have it in better areas and not be in our end as much.”
• Are you satisfied with where the team is, “not really, I think we can be better and be in a better place, I do. We certainly want to play a more complete game, a 60 minute game, I just don’t think our consistency has been there and I think there have been some reasons why. We have addressed them and I think we are getting a little bit better at it. We’ve got a ways to go.”
• “One of the things I thought we were doing early on, the first 4-5-6 weeks, I thought there was a pace to our game, simplicity to our game, not a lot of BS. I think that in the last couple of weeks that has crept in. Our lack of patience has hurt us, we were more patient earlier in the year, we were in more peoples faces and I don’t think we have had that in the last 2-3 weeks.”
• On players playing outside their comfort zone, “I think that my job is how far they can do it. Everybody is born with a certain level of it, personality plays a big part in it, sometimes when you are in practice and blow a whistle and do it again and they get out of their comfort zone, during a game they may revert back to who they have been. I’ve said this before, my job is to push them as far as I can and see how consistent they can be with their physical and mental effort.”
• On Hayes, “he’s close to practicing, I’m hoping he will be able to practice tomorrow.”
• On Shattenkirk, “he hasn’t skated but he is getting closer. It’s probably closer to four weeks.”
• On splitting the goalies this weekend, “that is certainly on the table.”