5:25PM: David Quinn spoke after practice today and said (NYR):

• On Zibanejad being out there, “he made another step, day to day, another good step, hopefully he can do a bit more tomorrow.”
• Any timeline on Mika, “no.”
• Do you expect Kakko to play, “yea.”
• On Tim Gettinger, “he had a really good start down there and earned this opportunity. You could just see, he’s here with a bit more confidence. Last year, when he got here, he was maybe not sure he belonged. It feels like he is in a different spot in his career, feels like he belongs here especially after the start he had in Hartford. He did a really good job killing penalties, we need more killers here. Big body, playing with a lot of confidence. Anxious to see him play tomorrow.”
• Do you sense the guys coming from Hartford have more confidence, “winning, for sure, helps but those guys have done great from the get-go. It’s so vital to have an environment down there where guys are getting better, they feel like they are prepared when they get here. Kris and his staff have done a great job with that.”
• On how Gettinger needs to play, “playing the way he needs to play to be successful at this level and all the things he did in Hartford to give him this opportunity.”
• Did Saturday’s game put Tampa behind you, “yes, for sure. The good thing in this league is that you play a lot so when you have a night like you did against Tampa you have an opportunity to play right away and put that behind you. Unfortunately we didn’t do enough to win but we did enough to put ourselves in a position to win. We just have to avoid those mistakes when we think offense when we just need to manage the game. We went up 3-2 and as our tendency has been throughout the season, we start cheating. I don’t know whether that is youth or what but we need to address that, we have been addressing it and we have to keep working on it and understand that when you are up 3-2 you have to keep managing the game. The other team is probably going to give a bit of a push and you have to put yourself in a position where you wanna maintain that lead for an extended period of time and be patient and that is something we haven’t done a great job of this year.”
• Was it nice to have time between Florida and now, “one of the reasons those guys played as much as they did was the fact that we had three days off. That was part of the thought process of having those guys play an absurd amount of minutes.”
• On Adam Fox, “he’s a guy that sees the ice so well. Anticipation is as good as anyone that I have seen to start his career at this level. He has an uncanny ability where you think he’s going to get hit and he comes out of scrum or, a lot of times during a game I say how do you need get hit there and he finds a way to slither away from people. He has been doing that his whole life and the question was whether he would be able to do it as this level, on top of defending and playing at a pace and he’s been able to do those things.”
• Have you been surprised with Fox, “surprising that he did it so quickly, I knew he eventually was going to be able, but the question was when. Was he going to be able to play at this pace and defend to the level that he was going to be effective and he’s been able to do that.”
• Why Lundqvist tomorrow, “I just want to get him back in there. He’s played well against Washington and just how we anticipate it moving forward. I want to get him in a bit of a rhythm.”
• On Georgiev, “Georgie has done a good job rebounding from sub-par performances, I’m not worried about that. He’s had a really good run here dating back to last year. When the season ends he’s going to play a lot of hockey for us.”
• On Kreider and the second line, “He brings a dimension to that line with speed and physicality and willingness to go to the net and things of that nature but obviously he’s a guy that enjoys helping young players and I think he is helpful to Fil and Buchie.”
• On the forward continuity lately, “I think that definitely helps, we have been somewhat productive offensively in this stretch. I think that might have something to do with it.”
• On Strome and Panarin when Mika is back, “I’ll be shocked if we move Strome. We aren’t that far along in the process of where to put Mika since he’s probably not going to play this week. We’ve discussed it a little but there are other areas we have to address and focus on right now and when Mika comes back we will address that then. Strome has obviously had a really good start, I’m not going to take him out of the middle unless something drastic happens.”
• Why have Strome and Panarin worked, “Strome is a smart player, the compliment each other well. Bread enjoys playing with them. Fast has given that line a little bit of honesty and straight line approach to the game with those guys being a little more east-west. I think the line in general has a good balance to it.”
• Chytil is good for tomorrow, “yea, just a maintenance day for him.”
• Is the flu still around, “it’s gone, we are fine.”
• On the Caps, “everyone knows who we are facing, but for me and for us, we have to be dialed in to what we need to do to continue to get better and regardless of our opponent we need to play a particular way. We need to keep building on that. It just so happens we are playing Washington and they are feeling really good about themselves and playing really good hockey at a high level. We are going to have to continue to build on the things we’ve done well and certainly minimize the things we have struggled with, tomorrow night.”
• On the PK issues, “the Tampa game, probably a bit of both. I think three of their five PP goals were off a faceoff. Literally, we’d have a faceoff and they’d score four seconds later. It really wasn’t so much the structure, just overreaction on a faceoff. The game in Florida, they make a heck of a play on the first goal. Sometimes the answer to how they got that goal is that they had five and we had four. A couple of things we could have done a little bit better but it was a hell of a shot. The second one, there was a breakdown. We had to reassess and hit the restart button and get back to the basics of killing penalties.”
• Do you have confidence in the PK group, “I don’t have the number but I thought we were middle of the puck right around the Tampa game, it wasn’t like we were 28th in the league. I think we were right around 80%. We want to be better but it wasn’t what the feeling is today after those two disastrous games. Confidence can get shaken in a hurry and part of being a good PK team is confidence in yourself but the people out there with you.”

11:21AM: Mika Zibanejad is taking part in Rangers practice today while wearing a red non-contact jersey. (NYR, NYR)

Zibanejad has been ruled out for tomorrow’s game against Washingtin, the 10th he will miss since taking a hit from Patrice Bergeron on 10/29.

Filip Chytil is not skating because of a maintenance day and Micheal Haley is also taking part in practice. (Brooks, Stephenson)

Haley cleared waivers on Monday but the Rangers have not sent him to Hartford.

David Quinn said that putting Haley on waivers was for flexibility purposes. The Rangers have 30 days, from when Haley cleared waivers, to send him to Hartford before needing to put him on waivers again.