David Quinn met with the media following the loss to the Isles and said (MSG):

• On Panarin, “he has an upper body issue and 50/50 throughout the afternoon on whether he was going to play, by the end it just didn’t seem like the right thing to do. We don’t think it’s long-term, that is the update.”
• On the game, “I really liked out start, we were ready to play, our first PP was really good, we did everything but score. The kill was doing a good job and they throw it to the net and it goes in. I thought we made a bad decision on the second PP goal, we were killing and tried to create offense when we didn’t need to or try to. We do a bad job coming back in our end and it kind of deflated us a little bit. We were doing some good things at the end of the period and the third one, it was too easy. They get rid of it quickly and get it to the net and it’s 3-0. Then I thought the last 7-8 minutes of the second we had it going, we get the goal waived off which was deflating and the fourth one was tough to overcome.”
• On the goal that was waived off, “I thought there was a gray area with it, apparently they didn’t. Any time they go to review they look at it on video so, it’s hard to argue.”
• On Panarin’s injury, “it’s probably five days. He’s had an issue before with this and it reoccurred.”
• Could he have pushed through, “it just didn’t get a lot better. He was a game-time decision against Columbus and he played and it didn’t get any better.”
• On going into the break with two losses, “it’s disappointing because I thought we played pretty well tonight. The result isn’t what we needed it to be. There are things we need to do better, even the team that wins probably thinks they should do things better. It was one of those nights and they were very opportunistic and we weren’t.”
• On Kakko’s game, “I thought he did have extra tonight. It’s 3-0, we hadn’t scored a goal 5-on-5 in a while, Brady got the one against Columbus, so I thought I’d just change the lines a bit.”
• Did Kakko seem more confident, “I liked his game early too, I’ve liked his game for a while. It was something we contemplated doing earlier, I’ve liked that young line together. I didn’t love them tonight as a group but I did like his game so I put him up there.”
• How different is your team without Panarin, “very. One game makes a difference, especially a guy who is a superstar. With him in the lineup our lineup looks a lot different. The other team has to pay attention to him and he makes the two linemates, in essence you lose three players because the two guys he isn’t playing with aren’t as good without him there. It’s a blow but every team goes through injuries. We’ve been fortunate in a lot of ways with injuries this year. I was confident we could win this hockey game without him and we could have but we are obviously a much better team with him.”
• Will he go to the All-Star game, “Jeff and JD are dealing with that now.”
• Do you have any young guys going to Hartford during the break, “Not right now.”