Gerard Gallant met with the media following the Rangers win over Pittsburgh and aid (MSG, NYR):
- On Shesterkin, “I thought he was excellent. People were worried about him, I wasn’t. He played real well tonight, made some key saves at key times, definitely.”
- Did you sense Shesterkin would play like this, “you don’t know when he’s going to pitch another game like that, but he’s done it so many times in this building this year, and on the road, also. He’s played great for us. He’s had a so-called tough stretch a little bit, lately, more the team than it was him, but tonight he made 3-4 outstanding saves.”
- On the PK, “It was good, real solid.”
- Did you feel you controlled the pace, “It felt pretty good, the first period was back and forth and two teams feeling each other out, and then I thought the second period we played real well and had some good scoring chances. I felt good about our team all night, I thought we played a solid game. A few mistakes, not many.”
- On Frank Vatrano, “Yea, good for him, shooting the puck and he had an opportunity there.”
- Do you have an update on Tyler Motte, “I haven’t heard nothing yet, it happened so late…nothing.”
- Is there message sending at the end of the game, “No, that is what is going to happen, stuff like that happens. There was nothing before that hit and then obviously guys are unhappy about a hit like that. I didn’t think they took care of it with the right call, but…”
- What does a win like this do for the team, “I don’t know, puts us up six points on Pittsburgh. We’ve played this team real well all year, all the games have been good hockey games. It’s four times and we’ve won three times against them in roughly the last two weeks and played good games. It’s another stepping stone to keep our team going and we want to win games and get points and that is the best we can do. We’ve got 10 games left and see what happens.”
- Is there anything unique about playing them four times in 41 days, “that is what happens in the division at the end of the season, you get a lot more divisional games. It worked out good for us, obviously, but I’m sure they aren’t too happy about going 0-3 against us, but, again, who knows what is going to happen in two weeks time or three weeks time.”
- Has the top-six fallen into place, “at times I thought we gave them too much defensively, we weren’t perfect in the second period, they made some mistakes, but offensively they made some real good plays.”
- Sitting Braun was a coaches decision, “yea, he’s fine.”