Gerard Gallant met with the media following the loss to Minnesota and said (MSG):
- On the game, “I thought the game was going to be different than it was. It played out…six shots each in the first period, it was sort of a careful game, they had some great chances early, Georgie had to make a couple really good saves going across the crease on back-door tap ins. Unfortunate, the second goal, it’s close, they get a lucky break. That was a big goal in the game, but obviously we battled back. We didn’t play as good as we could have. I thought we should have played harder, could have been better, but they were the hungrier team. They haven’t played well lately and you knew they were going to come out and play hard tonight and I thought their top-two lines were really good…hard to contain.”
- On Georgiev, “it’s gotta be tough on the kid. It is what it is, we are all about winning hockey games and doing the best we can to win every game every night and that is the way it is. It’s tough on him and you feel for him a little bit and hopefully he gets a win sooner or later and get back at it. He doesn’t get many games, but that is the NHL right now. We are worried about wins and can’t worry about every individual player. He’s a man and he’ll own up and play his games and get his opportunities. I still feel very good about him. He’s a confident guy and I feel good about it and it doesn’t bother me one bit. We’ll move on to the next game and away we go.”
- On the second period, “that was real tough. We get that goal shorthanded and I think it was the same PP that they scored, which is really tough because usually you get some momentum from that and we lost our momentum there and then the two breakaway goals were tough to handle, but that third goal was definitely tough.”
- On Minnesota’s quality chances, “Yea, they had a lot of good quality chances, especially those top-two lines, they generated a lot and had some good backdoor plays. That is what they do, their top guys do that and played real well tonight.”
- On Reaves playing with Zibanejad and Kreider, “They were playing the match up game with their big guys and I wanted Reavo to be on that side. Laffy did nothing wrong, Laffy has played great and I’m happy with him and I told him that. It was just the match up for tonight and things will be back to normal.”