Gerard Gallant met with the media following the win over St. Louis and said (NYR/MSG):

• On the game, “It was three completely different periods. First period I thought was a good game, two teams not giving up a lot, second period, obviously, with the penalties we took and then we fell behind and kept chasing the game after that, give up a couple of bad goals on the rush and then in the third period we found a way to get to the net and a couple of deflection goals. It was three completely different periods and we’ll take the W, it’s a big win for us, but it wasn’t a perfect game by no means for either team.”

• Is what you did in the third period sustainable, “it’s getting to the net like we talked about, Laffy’s goal was a deflection, I can’t even remember the other two goals…but that is how we gotta play, we mixed the lines up a little bit, I liked (smile) the line combination I got this morning from the media…”
• Why did you put Zibanejad with Lafreniere and Kakko, “After the second it was…I wasn’t liking what I was seeing. I didn’t like what I was seeing midway through the second period and I just wanted to try and spark something again. The two kids deserve some opportunities and I thought they played really well….and for me, it made the three lines all better. Hopefully we’ll sustain it and we’ll see.”
• Do you think they get a jump in their game by playing with Mika, “I think so, definitely. It’s a period and a half, but they are young players and we talk about it a number of times. Confidence goes a long way with young players and playing with a star player in the middle…I’m sure that helps them.”
• On Kakko being unable to score on his chances, “unreal, unreal. He played really well, had two goal posts again tonight. But you keep doing, you keep shooting and going to the net and good things will happen.”
• How important is it for K’Andre to score, “It’s big for K’Andre, he’s played pretty well for us all year. It’s a simple game, but when you put pucks to the net and keep it simple usually good things happen and that is what we did tonight. We kept it simple for the most part and St. Louis did the same thing to us in the second period, they kept it simple and put pucks to the net and pucks go in and there were some funny bounces tonight and a couple of deflection goals. Fortunately for us we were on top.”
• How important is it to have the young players produce, “I hope we can maintain it for the next, what do we have? 55, whatever it is. They were real good tonight, showed some good signs and just keep it going.”
• What does the win mean before the road trip, “It meant a lot, obviously the streak we’ve been on the last two weeks hasn’t been good, so definitely getting a win tonight is positive moving forward and hopefully we get our game…we’re going back to play Vegas, a real good team, and Colorado a couple of nights later, so we better be ready to play on the road and play well and we’ve had a pretty good success on the road, so hopefully we’ll play well again.”