David Quinn met with the media following the Rangers win over Boston and said:

• On having Panarin back, “Having him back does so many things, not just on the ice, but just mentally, our guys hold him in high esteem, he’s a well-liked teammate, a great teammate, our guys were dying for him to come back for a lot of reasons and you put him in our lineup and we have more swagger. Just proud of our guys, we’ve been in this situation before this year, where it seems like all of the sudden our season might be slipping away and to play the way we did, from start to finish, we never took our foot off the pedal, having him in the lineup certainly gave us a jolt, but I also loved Mika’s game. Mike was certainly the dominant player we all know he is capable of being, Kreider was outstanding, Buchnevich was outstanding, Strome had a strong game, up and down the lineup, we came ready to play as a team, just really proud of our guys.”

• On Panarin’s game, “He’s a very cerebral player, that never leaves you no matter how long you’ve been on or off the ice. He does take good care of himself, he’s in great shape. I remember when we signed him, I was talking to Torts about him and Torts says that he’s the best-tired player he’s ever coached. He’s just got the ability, he has a great feel for the game, he slows it down to his pace, but he can also play at a high pace. There aren’t many player like that in the league. It was a hell of a play he made on the goal and having him in the lineup certainly gave us a jolt. That being said, we went 4-4 without him which is a testament to our players and our team holding the fort down until he got back. It was certainly good to have him back in the lineup and you saw what it did for us.”
• On the top players knowing they need to do more, “they heard it loud and clear, it was talked about with them. Any team in this league, if your top players don’t perform, you are not going to win, I don’t care who they are or how long they have been in the league, you just have no chance to win. I mean look at what that line does for the Bruins night in and out, that line drives that team and I’ve always said this about the Bruins with Pastranak, Marchand and Bergeron, everybody else on that team feels a little bit braver, have more swagger and that is what your top players have to do to your team and when you show up and you know your top players are playing well, you just feel different. That is how are our team felt today and our top players performed and delivered. “
• On Keith Kinkaid, “He made the saves he had to, some timely ones for sure, you never win a game 4-0 and not have your goalie contribute and he certainly contributed. He’s a good goalie, an NHL goalie, we know that, that is one of the reasons we signed him. We knew we were going to need depth this year, you need depth every year and he’s had a little bit of a tough stretch the last year and a half and we thought we signed a guy that could play in the NHL and help us and he has.”
• On the overall defensive effort, “I thought we did a much better job taking their time and space away. One of the things we try to do night in and out is not give them a lot of room and I thought we did a good job of that tonight. Before the game, I was looking at some stats and I don’t really pay attention to the league stats a lot, I watch our games and we certainly dissect them as a staff, but we haven’t given up a lot of shots, we are 10th in the NHL in fewest shots per game and our goals against are 10th or 11th. We’ve been pretty good in that area throughout the season, but tonight was one of our better games in that area.”
• What was Mika doing today that made him effective, “He played with an attitude, he played with an attitude and that is something we talked about as a team. The team we just played, I don’t think anybody plays with an attitude more than them. They are physical, when they go to a battle they are in it fully and you gotta play with an attitude in this game and I thought we showed up and played with an attitude today in those subtle, 50/50 puck battles we were certainly engaged and eager to get to the battle and when we struggle we are conveniently second and tonight we were eager to get in the battle and no more so than our top players.”
• On putting Panarin and Strome together, “Sometimes as a coach you can’t really explain the decisions you make, it’s a gut feeling, intuition and I thought it would help Strome out to have Bread back with him. In this past year, Kreider, Zibanejad, Buchnevich line has been pretty good against the Bruins and I thought that when Blackwell was in the right mindset that he complemented Bread and Stromer and he certainly did that again tonight. It was just something that we talked about as a staff and thought it was the right thing to do.”
• On K’Andre Miller, “I thought he was really good today, did a really good job defensively, obviously scores the goal and gets the puck to the net on that play and was making good decisions on when to get involved and when not to, his decision-making process was good. He’s out there against top players and defends them well, I thought he did a really good job closing on people, finishing checks, had a great stick. I liked a lot about his game.”
• Has some of the Boston attitude rubbed off on you guys, “I hope so. When you are going along in the season and as young as we are, you can learn from teams that you play and that certainly is something we need to take from the Bruins. They’ve had a lot of success for a long period of time. Their top players are highly skilled, but they’ve got an anger to their game and when you have a skilled player that plays with an anger, you become an elite player in this league and that is something I think all of our players can take a page out of their book from. I think a lot of our guys have already had that a bit, we just have to have it more consistently.”