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

• On the game, “the game started off, the first 8-10 minutes I thought they outplayed us, then the second half of the first I thought we played really well and then after that it wasn’t near good enough. They were a much better team, the game shouldn’t have been that close and fortunately for Shesty he kept us in it and gave us a chance.”

• Does the recent success make this loss easier to swallow, “It’s disappointing. I don’t care about the past games, it’s about getting ready for every one. The points and standings, that doesn’t matter, it’s about playing well and  winning points when you get a chance and tonight we didn’t play near well enough to beat that team.”
• On Carolina limiting breakouts and offensive zone time, “Honestly, the whole game I thought they outplayed us, they were a lot quicker than we were tonight, for whatever reason, they managed the puck real well. When we did have some breakouts it just seemed like they were right on us, but it all comes back to we didn’t skate enough, didn’t move the puck enough, didn’t play our game. They were the quick, quick team and we were slow.”
• On knowing how Carolina is going to play, “they play the same game every night, we know that and they know how they play. I was just disappointed with our effort, our compete level. A lot of the one-on-ones they won and that can’t, you’re not going to beat any team in the league if you don’t win your share of one-on-ones and they probably won a good majority of those.”
• On Lindgren, “a little rust for sure, but not bad. He was better than some of them.”
• Was it a little scare when he left for a few minutes, “he’s going to have stuff, little things like that, shooting pain. I don’t know, they said not to worry about it, but I worry about it (smile), but he was fine.”