Gerard Gallant met with the media following the win over Boston and said (MSG, NYR):
- On Shesterkin, “He was great, had a great night, both goaltenders were real good in a 1-1 hockey game, he was outstanding and got the fans behind him, that is before.”
- On Shesterkin being pulled, “I have no idea, seriously, I know nothing about what happened or who called.”
- Was the timeout at the end of OT to give Shesterkin more time, “No, we wanted to set up a….that’s a good point (laugh), I wish I could say….we wanted to set up a faceoff play, we had six seconds left, wanted to get a little play to Foxy and run Kreider to the net with a little deflection, but it didn’t happen.”
- Did you know Shesterkin was coming back, “I didn’t know nothing, I thought he was done, I had no idea. He went off and the next thing I know I saw him come out and the trainer said to one of our coaches, on the headset, that he’s coming back out.”
- What have you learned about how competitive Shesterkin is, “I’ve seen it from day one. I didn’t know him until training camp, he likes to compete and battles, works hard in practice everyday and that is the character of the guy.”
- On the start of the game, “I think that when I talked at 5PM it was sort of basically what I said it was going to be. We were a little bit, haven’t had body contact for two weeks and haven’t played a game, so there was some rust in the first period and, again, it wasn’t that bad. I think they had two scoring chances, we had one from what I saw. It wasn’t brutal, but wasn’t what we wanted and I thought the second and third was real good.”
- On the third and fourth lines, “I’m happy with what they are doing. They are getting chances and they are going to go in the net sooner or later. The team played hard and for the first game back I was really happy with them.”
- You were happy with the effort, “Overall, yea. The first we had some bad turnovers, but after that I thought we were much better and when they did have some good chances Shestey made some big saves, the breakaway from Hall and a couple of other real good chances and their guy was good too in the OT, he made some key saves also.”
- On Schneider and Jones, “good, solid, played good, moved the puck, I was happy with them.”
- On K’Andre Miller, “he’s confident, from game ten on he’s been really confident and like any other young defenseman, plays really well and makes some real good plays and then makes some bad plays, a couple of defensive zone plays, but that is every player in the NHL, but we really like Key, he’s confident, feels real good about his game and scoring the shootout winner is pretty good for him tonight.”