Prior to tonight’s game against the Wild, David Quinn spoke about the state of the Rangers after last night and said:
- On tonight, “I expect a good effort tonight, I really do. Obviously we are in a tough situation and last night I thought we kind of caved to where we were at. I’ve never felt that way, in our situation I felt that our guys may have caved and the last word I would ever use for our team is quit. We have all watched us and I think we are 4th in the NHL in coming back in the third period to win hockey games and this team has shown a very good work ethic. The one thing we did last night, and I think you could feel it, I thought we caved a little to our situation so I’m excited about tonight, I think we are gonna come out with more energy and purpose to our game.”
- Does the team feel that it happened, “I think they do feel it, the game and performance can’t lie to you. When the game ends and you get on the plane and leave the rink, there is a feeling that you have and one of things we talked about is that we don’t want to have that feeling. We want to feel good about our effort, feel good about the result, we didn’t feel good about either of those things last night. You can say you want to win and that losing hurts, but you gotta do something about it and prove it with your actions.”
- On what is at stake for the Wild, “We have a lot of stake too, we aren’t mathematically eliminated yet and playoffs are a long shot and dream for us but you are playing a hockey game tonight and playing in the NHL, there is nothing like winning. You want to give everything you can to do it physically and mentally and we didn’t do it last night. We can’t have this game end and get on that plane feeling like we did last night, we have to make sure we are putting forth a mental and physical effort and making sure we feel good about our effort and result.”
- Why was last night the first time they caved, “It’s been 2 1/2 weeks since the deadline, lots of moving parts, guys in and our of the lineup and we haven’t had a lot of success from a winning and losing standpoint and that can wear on your human psyche. Human nature can kick in and you can’t let it, you need to fight it and be mentally strong enough to not cave into frustration and the situation.”