Gerard Gallant met with the media following the loss in Game 5 and said (MSG):

• On the game, “The first goal was sort of a lucky goal off the faceoff and they got that 1-0 lead and we had a few chances in the first, just weren’t good enough. I thought we played a lot harder than we did the other night, but we couldn’t find a way to get a goal. We had some traffic and I thought the goalie played really well for them tonight. Our goalie was excellent, too, but I thought Schmid was pretty good.”

• So you were happier with the effort to try and score, “it was a lot more guys around the net. He made a great save on Kaapo on the short side there, the rebound play. I thought we had a lot more traffic around the net and did a lot of things better, but it wasn’t good enough obviously.”
• Were the big offensive players trying to do too much and Zibanejad taking penalties, “Penalty calls are tough calls, I think it was interference in the neutral zone, it was the right call, but guys are trying to help each other out, tried to work hard. I got no problem with their effort tonight. They competed, came in here and Jersey played a hell of a game, gotta give them a lot of credit, they played their best game of the series tonight.”
• On the PP, “overall it was good. Obviously the shorthanded goal late there was tough to give up, but those are the breaks sometimes, we don’t give up many of those during the season and our first one of the playoffs. We gotta be better, but, again, it wasn’t nothing…I don’t feel the same or anything close to the last game. The effort is there, we’ve been in this position before, last year twice, in the first round we were down 3-2. See what we can do, go back home on Saturday and rally the troops and get it going.”