Gerard Gallant met with the media following the win over St. Louis and said (NYR):
- (Joke) That was a brilliant move putting Nemeth back in, “Brilliant, yeah. Brilliant the last two and a half minutes of the second, too, but we found a way.”
- You always find a way, “Igor was outstanding when he had to be, for sure.”
- On the mood after the second, “Disappointment, frustration over basically falling asleep for 2 1/2 minutes. You give up three goals like that, you are in control, not saying, they were the better team, don’t get me wrong, but I’m saying that it’s 2-0 and we are in control of the game. They get one, you can live with that, but you give up three goals like that, it was pretty discouraging, so I didn’t have to say much.”
- On the teams ability to come back in games, “It’s a great thing to have, but like I said, I was really disappointed giving up those three like that. Shesterkin played his tail off tonight, he made some unbelievable saves in the first period, the last eight minutes was incredible and gave us the 1-0 lead and then I thought we played pretty good in the second overall, but late in the second, after that TV timeout they got three. Stuff like that happens when when you have character on your team, good leadership and they find a way and dug down between periods.”
- On the timeout taken on the PP, “Mike Kelly drew up a play, I don’t know if he…the TV knew what it was (laugh), but you always know Kreider is going to the net. We had 40 seconds left and 10 minutes left in the game, so we figured it was a good time to use the timeout and keep those guys out there and give them another chance and it worked.”
- On the penalty kill late in the game, “Kegger was big and that is what he does for us sometimes. You look at him out there and say he doesn’t bring much offense, but he does the gritty stuff and does the right thing with the puck and did a great job on the PK.”
- Any update on Kevin Rooney, “I haven’t heard, the way everything happened I didn’t even talk to the trainers.”
- On Lafreniere scoring again, “Made some real good plays, some good chances, had a couple of bad shifts, but for the most part of the game they were good and worked hard and Laffy is staying hot and I know that every time he scores….he played a good game for us.”