David Quinn met with the media on Friday after the morning skate and said (NYR):
- Is Kreider playing, “Kreider and Staal will be back in.”
- Who comes out, “Gilmour and Freddy and still waiting on forward lineup, still one guy that is dinged up and will figure out whether he will be in or not.”
- Is Brendan Smith playing defense, “yes.”
- Who is in goal, “Georgiev.”
- On Mika Zibanejad hitting 30 goals, “we’ve all talked about the type of year that he has had. Not surprised he got to 30, he might have been when 7-8 games he wasn’t getting rewarded for all the good things he was doing but usually it all plays out. When you play the right way and consistent and approach the game the way he has you usually get rewarded statistically and that is what happened. Obviously after the deadline he lost Zucc and that line was dismantled but for him to get to that plateau says an awful lot about the year he’s had.”
- On Zibanejad being a number one center, “I would have said he was a number one center regardless but it’s always nice to have your number one center score 30 goals and I think there is more there, I think he has the ability to do more than that.”
- On Ryan Strome, “he’s been a 50 point producer in this league, it only happened once but he had the ability to do it and that was one of the things, when we got him in the trade, that we were hoping to get him on track from an offensive standpoint. He plays with a lot of passion, personality, has good skills, good vision and I think from a consistency standpoint we were looking for more out of him, to be more dialed in to every aspect of his game. When a guy has offensive ability sometimes, too often, they focus on that as opposed to focusing on the process and letting the offensive side of things happen. I think that is what happened, he’s been more well rounded, paid attention to the details of the game that maybe don’t go on the scoresheet and when you do those things you get rewarded statistically.”
- On Strome’s role in the locker room, “he would fit into any locker room, he’s very likable, not shy at all, any time I walk into a room he is usually holding court and he thinks he is funny. He’s not a guy that dips his toe into the water in a locker room or situation, he has a likable side to him.”
- On Bruce Cassidy’s comment saying the Rangers young players were disrespectful, “I’ll have to ask Bruce what he meant this summer, I don’t know what he meant. Everyone has their opinion.”
- On players pissing off other players, “I just think it was the normal emotions of a hockey game, I didn’t see anything that was disrespectful but maybe I missed something. I didn’t think anything out of the ordinary happened in that game. I understand Bergeron’s reaction and Patrice has had some concussion issues but it’s not like Lias ran him, more of a reverse hit that Patrice has mastered and made him into one of the best centers to play the game. I think Lias got a little high on it but it wasn’t intentional, I don’t know if that is what Bruce as alluding to or the back and forth verbal stuff, which I don’t love either…I want to play hard, not talk hard. Maybe there are things I missed that I’m not aware happened. I’ll ask him the next time I see him.”
- On the PK against St. Louis, “the PK has been good but it was one of those games where nothing goes right on the PK. The funny thing is, that game ends and you never felt like we were in it yet with 7.5 minutes to go it’s 3-2. When the game ended the 5 on 5 chances were even and there were some good things going on. Obviously they are one of the elite teams in the league but we were hanging around and right before the penalty I felt we had a chance to tie the game up and who knows what would have happened. The way it ended leaves a sour taste in your mouth but it was 3-2 with 7.5 minutes left.”
- On the too many men on the ice penalties, “we had five in October, four of the five were defenseman related – they had some system where you take the first guy and I’ll take the second instead of left D change for left and right D change for right. We cleaned that up and we had hardly any issues until the trade deadline. I looked at all of them and we had one in December, one in January, the average is about 7-8 per year in the NHL. The first one was the Nashville game where we had the goalie pulled and they took a penalty and Zucc jumped on the ice – he didn’t realize you couldn’t have seven guys on the ice (smile), so the next four were defensemen related and we cleaned that up and we didn’t have trouble until the trade deadline. Both penalties the other night, the guys who were going out together weren’t sitting together. I know that it sounds youth hockey and I can’t even believe I’m having this conversation in the NHL but if the guys were sitting together they would have cured the problem. Lemieux jumps because Buchnevich is maybe a half a second late going for his man and he just jumps. Lettieri jumps because Lias Andersson has been playing center the whole game and Strome has to take the draw because he is on his backhand side and Vinni sees him take the faceoff and while he’s been changing for Strome the whole time he goes out for Lias because he thinks Lias is the RW. The lines will be sitting together from here on in, I will have assigned seats and it will be like home room” (laughs).
- On Brendan Smith being the Masterton nominee, “I’ve been fortunate to know Brendan for a long time. I’m not surprised by that, he’s had an up and down year but it’s been a lot more up lately and he’s done a lot of things that we have asked him to do, he brings the qualities you want on a team, he plays hard, competes, passionate, great personality and is a good hockey player. He’s done a good job up front, he will go back on D, he’s had a better second half on defense and it’s nice to have a guy that can play both decisions.”
- On Gilmour coming out, “I think there has been a little dip in his game over the last few games and that can happen to a guy who has a real good first game and then has a dip. You’ll see him again.”