Gerard Gallant spoke after the loss to Nashville and said (NYR, MSG):

• On the game, “it was a push, a bad first period, I should have listened this morning when you guys talked about it, but I didn’t like any of the game, to be honest with you. We played too soft, we didn’t play hard enough, it was a man’s game and we didn’t play it.”

• On Trouba’s hit igniting things, “A much better game and their goalie made some good saves on the PP, obviously, it’s not good enough. Their two best players aren’t playing today and we just didn’t do enough. The first period they hemmed us in our zone and we didn’t pay a price to win the board battles and at the end of it it cost us.”
• Is Lafreniere okay, “Yep, just wanted to give him a seat. He wasn’t alone.”
• Have the lines become stale, “they did….there wasn’t much going on so I just wanted to try something else, put Gauthier up there, add a little more speed and see if something were to change a little bit, it changed a little bit, but it wasn’t enough. I just wanted to change something up, definitely try something different.”
• On Hajek’s game, “to be honest, it wouldn’t be fair to say because I’m changing the forwards. He looked fine to me, everything looked good, but when I watch the tape I’ll know more. I wish Gord was here to tell you.”
• On Georgiev, “outstanding, played really good, real solid game and real happy with the way he is playing, definitely.”
• Was it that the jump wasn’t there tonight, “they come in here and played a good road game, they played a hard game and we didn’t match the intensity they had, especially in the first period. After that I thought it was better, but in the first period they out-bumped us, won all the one-one-one battles and looked like we weren’t ready to play in the first.”