Gerard Gallant met with the media following the Rangers win over LA and said (NYR, MSG):

• Ever been involved in a game like that, “Probably, but it’s been a while, long time.”
• What do you take away from this game, “It’s like I said before the game to the guys, back in your minor hockey days everybody loved playing every second, third shift and defensemen rolled and just played and you get into the game that way, fortunately for us we got away with it and no issues and the guys played, played one of their better games in a long time and everybody competed and did a good job. Great goaltending, but I thought our team played excellent tonight.”

• What were you thinking when Zibanejad went down, “I was sick…I was as happy as the fans were when we came out of the runway in the third period (smile). It was a gutsy effort, a gutsy win and obviously Mika doing that, you don’t want to see it a whole lot, but it was a big play and he does that and guys on the bench say that it’s a big part of our game and that is why we won tonight.”
• Did going down to four D force the forwards into defending more, “definitely. We gave a couple of odd-man rushes, but not many and they really helped out and I think the D played it pretty safe and moved the puck up the ice and didn’t try to get involved in the offense a whole lot. I thought they did exactly what they were supposed to do and the good part is that a lot of our guys, we made sure we came back and had guys back and weren’t giving up as many odd-man rushes as we gave up in the past and I think it was real good for our group.”
• On K’Andre’s penalty for spitting, “I didn’t see nothing, honestly. Obviously, it happened, I’m not saying it didn’t happen. The kid feels bad about it and said it was an accident. That is all. I didn’t see nothing, I couldn’t see nothing. Like I said, I’m not saying it happened or didn’t happen, I didn’t see it, couldn’t see it on the video, but he didn’t deny it, I don’t think.”
• Are you worried about managing ice times, “The only guys are the four defensemen. The forwards didn’t have an abundance of ice time, we had everybody rotated in there. Just those defensemen played a lot of minutes, but they were excited and we have a day off tomorrow and don’t play until Wednesday. They get a good break.”
• Are you just counting the days until all these situations get resolved, “You know what, we come to the rink and try to win a hockey game as a coach. I’m excited with the way things are going here, today’s game was a great game for us. We competed, because we didn’t have a good stretch of games there. I just do my job and manage our roster, that is the best we do.”
• How does it impact your plan when you know two guys aren’t playing, “Nothing, they were aware of it before the game and they understand totally, didn’t change a thing really. It changed when K’Andre went out of the game with that much time left, but the defensemen responded well to it and played hard.”
• That is something you plan for in advance with Chris Drury, “Definitely…we’ll, what’s way in advance? (laugh) I’m not telling you…it wasn’t before yesterday’s game, put it that way.”
• Can any of the forwards play defense, “Motte was getting ready to. I told him before the game, just in case. I think that with his speed and he plays a good defensive game. He was willing.”
• Was there any situation where you would have gone to Schneider or Carpenter, “I didn’t want to go either way there, didn’t want to do it. We would have seen and managed it, but I don’t think that would have happened….play all forward and keep the puck (laugh).”