David Quinn met with the media on MSG following the Rangers win over the Caps and said:

• On the game, “I liked a lot about our game from the get-go, I thought we were all dialed in, mentally and physically ready to go. Our PK stood tall again, Shesty had a good night, a bunch of people stepped up tonight. You are up 2-0, you want to get out of that period up 2-0 and part of the learning curve for us is still managing when you go up 2-0 how to play the game within the game. I like how hard we are defending, good sticks in the D-Zone. We played a real good team tonight and got two crucial points.”

• Were you impressed with Kakko, “Yes I was. Kakko played well, doing a lot of good things. We all have an idea of what we envision him to be as a player, all we do is measure him from day to day and he continues to improve and doing a lot of good things, doing a lot of good things.”
• On going to the third on the PK, “certainly things were said, we touched on what we were going to have to do moving forward, kill the penalty and if we kill the penalty, they are down 2-1 and going to have to take chances and play probably a bit more risky hockey and I thought we did a good job of managing the game. They got a real good team, pushed hard, had chances, our goalie made some big saves, which no matter what side of it you are on, your goalie always has to make big saves. We get out of that first period wondering how we only got one goal, we had some glorious chances in the first and just weren’t able to capitalize on it. The second goal was big, we had guys step up. That third goal was huge, obviously, disappointing to give up that faceoff goal, but we earned the win tonight, we deserved the two points.”
• On Shesterkin, “you can see him get more confident and settled in, even in practice, over the last 7-10 days. We’ve all touched on the fact that we have two really good goalies and this is a different experience for them, different setting for them and it may take them a little bit of time to get acclimated and he certainly has. That first chance, Trouba got a little rattled, got a little stunned and had to change and we got caught a little bit, but he came up big. If you are going to win a hockey game, your goalie has to make saves and no matter what level you are at and our guy did tonight.”
• On K’Andre Miller being on the ice late in the game, “it gives him confidence quickly and he certainly continues to grow as a player with confidence. The thing that I love about him, when he does make a mistake he has the ability to recover, wants to get better all the time, he’s been playing against big time players the last two weeks and he’s responded. It bodes well for his development and for the Rangers, that is for sure.”
• On this stretch of home games, “I don’t care where we are playing, on the moon or here, we need points. It’s a little different with no crowd, so playing home is a little different than in the past and playing on the road is different than in the past. We’ve gotta continue to be dialed in and regardless of road or home, we need to approach it like we have. If you look at our record, I know people don’t believe it, now it’s 7 out 0f 8, we played good hockey and we are starting to gain some mojo and feel good about ourselves and gain confidence. When you get 7 out of 8 points you start feeling better about yourself. You gotta have some swagger if you are going to have success in this or any league and we are starting to get a little bit of swagger.”
• Was this 60 minutes how you want the team to play, “It’s certainly close, I don’t think we played 60 minutes of the way we envision playing, but we played a majority of minutes the way we want to play. I like how we competed, survived some pushback and you’ve gotta play games within a game and I think we did a better job of that tonight, I don’t think we have done a great job of that throughout the season yet, but we are learning to play the game within the game. The key point would be, you are up 2-0, you kill a penalty and you want to get out of the period 1-0 and we didn’t do that, that is another thing we’ve gotta learn, but there are things we did better than we did in the first part of the season.”
• Can you specify where Kakko has made strides, “I think he is doing a better job in his wall battles, pressuring pucks, there is just a level of confidence and he is playing faster and when people hear about playing faster, it’s not just skating faster, it’s going from play to play and he’s doing a much better job, he’s much better in his D-Zone, he made some real good defensive plays tonight and you could just see, he’s starting to feel it, completely understand the game at the NHL and North American level and like I said, we all have a vision of what we know he’s going to look like eventually, but it’s going to be a process and we judge him from game to game, not from where we want him to be when he’s a finished product.”
• On Bitetto’s goal, “I was thinking ‘holy bleeping, what is he doing,’ and then it goes in the back of the net and I thought it was a good play by the end of it. You’ve gotta let players play, to a certain degree, he’s got a way about him, he’s a guy that players guys really enjoy, he competes, brings a life to our bench and he’s played well for the two games he’s played, I really like his game. He’s played well, practical, understands how to play the game, he reads situations well, a guy that I know, I thought Libor really leaned up him tonight, I thought Libor had a good game, but Bitetto has been around, he understands the NHL and understands himself as a player and I thought he had a real good night tonight.”