3:54 PM: Sammy Blais and Libor Hajek will remain healthy scratches and Igor Shesterkin will start in net against Washington. (NYR)

Gerard Gallant met with the media following the morning skate and said (NYR):

• “Same lineup.”
• On keeping the Goodrow and Kravtsov swap, “Yea, Goodrow was outstanding, that fourth line was our first line (laugh). He played real good, it was a good switch and we’ll see where it goes.”

• On Kravtsov being with Zibanejad and Panarin, “When you look, when you’ve got a plan you sort of put things out and you want people to deserve stuff and I think he worked hard, like we talked about a number of times. And in saying that, Goodrow has been one of our best players all year long. I don’t look at it as first or fourth line, I look at it as Goodrow made that line really good, he played well with the other lines and you put him anywhere and he does his job and that is what is important. Kravy played pretty well there the last game and a half, pretty good hockey.”
• You could swap them back in-game if you need to, “Yea…yea. We’ve done enough of that this year (laugh). Not worried about it, it’s not an issue. Last minute of the game you know he’s going to go up there.”
• What has Kravtsov done to give you more confidence he can play in that spot on the top line, “It’s not my confidence, it’s him getting confidence. We know what he can do, we know he’s skilled and talented, but do it consistently and he’s a big guy and he hasn’t played a lot of NHL games, so it’s like the other kids, they have around 200 games under their belt and playing good hockey. Kravy hasn’t played a lot of NHL games, go in there and do his job and play well. We’d like to see him play well on that line. It would be a big boost for our hockey team and if he can play well up there and score some goals and play well, good hockey, that is exactly what we want to see.”
• What has Ben Harpur done to earn your trust, “Steady, steady, steady. He comes up and is a big bodied guy with a good stick and he’s played really well. I didn’t know much about him, played a little bit in Ottawa and Nashville in the past, what he’s done with us is steady and play solid, defensive hockey and like what he’s bringing so far, obviously.”
• What else besides puck luck do you think is helping the team during their recent streak, “I just think we are playing a better overall game in every zone. Defensively we are playing better, getting more scoring chances, hitting a lot of goal posts, still, but keep shooting the puck. There is no one thing, really, it’s just better overall game is what I see….and our goalie has been outstanding.”