Rangers coach David Quinn met with the media following Saturday’s win over Toronto and said (NYR):
- On the win, “After what we have been through, I’m going to allow myself a lot of things right now. Our goalie was huge but we did a lot of good things, we defended pretty well, cleared out loose pucks in front of the net. Listen, it’s one of the most dangerous teams in the league and I felt we did a lot of good things in a lot of areas and finally won an OT game.”
- On being smart in OT, “I hope so but you never know, Boo makes a hell of a play on the goal so it’s all about the players and making plays in a 3 on 3 situation. We did a good job of stifling the one chance they had off the initial rush. I felt we had the puck for most of the short time in OT and that is a great way to be successful. We get a little too impatient in the OT, I think that has been part of our problem and we just wanted to possess it. If you have a good shot take it, otherwise hold it, make them defend, wear them out, be patient for your opportunities and I felt that we had a little bit better mentality in that regard.”
- On getting to pucks quickly, “that is how we have wanted to play all year, and I think we have done a good job for the most part but against this team it’s more important because you don’t want them to have it and if you can force them to do things fast you have a much better chance of possessing it. We do that no matter who we play but it’s probably al little bit more important against a team of this caliber.”
- On Brady Skjei’s play on the first goal, “he takes that off-angle shot and Buchie goes to the net and you get that lead. They kicked it up a notch and we weathered a few storms with goaltending and that is usually what happens against a team of that caliber, they turn it up a little bit, we did a pretty good job of weathering it. You can react to the crowd a lot and that is one of the things we talk about with our team, the crowd is gonna go crazy if they take a wide angle shot that isn’t really dangerous, and misses the net, you can’t get caught up in it, you gotta be in the moment, pay attention to what is really going on and I think we did a good job of that.”
- On Brendan Lemieux, “his minutes have gone up and he is getting in better shape and I want to keep working with him in that area. It’s going to take some time. He’s a hard nosed player and he can make plays so we want to help him in that area.”
- Did you like Lemieux in that spot, “yea. We will see how Kreider is when we get back but I did like him there tonight.”
- On how he felt about the game, “just really proud of our guys. It’s been a tough stretch like we have all talked about. To come out here in this building and get two points, against this team, says an awful lot about our character. We’ve talked about the things you are going to need to have success, talent is obviously one of them, one of the things we talked about this morning is that they have more talent than us, we know that and can’t control that. There are certain things we can control and we touched on those things and I think we did a good job managing the things we can control.”
- Have you seen Shattenkirk be this physical, “no, he did a lot of good things, manhandled some people down low. Shatty is a strong guy, he has hockey stretngth and I know a lot of people don’t see it and as he and I have talked and joked about to a certain degree, he has to be more physical but he is a strong player. When he defends like that and gets into people we are going to get the puck a lot more and he had plenty of moments tonight where I thought he did a good job defending.”