Gerard Gallant met with the media following the Rangers loss to Edmonton and said (NYR/MSG):

• Can you explain what happened, “Wish I could…couple of dumb penalties didn’t help it.”
• On defending guys like McDavid and being beaten by other players, “I thought we played a great two periods, exactly the way we wanted to play and then we come out in the third period and get careless and sloppy and we always talk about putting pucks behind defensemen and making them play in their own zone and when we turn pucks over they end up in the back of the net, they get momentum, we play too much time in the d-zone and that is what happens.”

• How do you stop periods from like this happening again, “I don’t know what to say to you…we talk about it between periods, we talk to the players, sometimes it just happens. It’s disappointing, we had a couple of timeouts, we tried to reset and get it going again. Mistakes happen and then they get four goals in the third period for no reason other than us giving them the opportunity, two dumb penalties, both goals and a couple of goals in-between.”
• Do you have an update on Lindgren’s injury, “upper body, day-to-day, I don’t know nothing right now.”
• Did you like the first two periods, “Yea, I was happy, we played pretty good hockey, contained them as munch as we could. They had 3-4 real good scoring chances, but besides that I thought we contained them and did a really good job.”
• Did you feel, as the players said, that they got too passive in the third, “It looked like that. It’s never been the message before, but it looked like that. We were real passive, we let them skate in our zone and we just stood there watching. You jam up the slot a little bit, but you jam up the slot and watch them pass the puck back and forth. The first two periods we did a good job, down low we created chances, had a lot of zone time, I thought, changed our game.”
• On the veterans leading after this, “They better have a chat. There’s a lot of guys responsible, it’s a team collapse, not one guy. Sure, the penalties, you are disappointed with those penalties, but it’s a group of guys that…that can’t happen. You are playing the two best players in the world and we sit back and watch them dominate that third period.”
• Do you feel there is a mental aspect to this since it’s happened a few times, “I’m worried about tonight, I don’t remember when it happened, I don’t remember any other period this year, four goals scored against us. We might have had some bad periods, but I don’t remember a four goal period….for tonight, we were awful, it’s embarrassing, it’s not acceptable, but I’m just going to talk about tonight, I don’t remember the other ones, too long ago (smile)…”