2023 New York Rangers Playoffs

What Gerard Gallant said after the Rangers were eliminated

Gerard Gallant met with the media following the Rangers elimination in Game 7 and said (MSG):

  • Did you just never get to the game you wanted to play tonight, “It was 0-0 for the longest time, thought that was in our favor. They were forechecking and had some good chances, but Shesty was real good and then that first one was a tough one to give up, obviously, and after that, the rest of the second period, I thought we gave up too much, 2-on-1s, odd-man rushes and then they got that second goal and that was tough.”

  • What are your thoughts about expectations and how this ended, “I thought we played a real good team. Like I said before the series and I was 100% honest, it was 50/50. We had a good team, I liked our team, thought the team we played was a very fast team and they took it to us at times in the series with their speed.”
  • Did you sense that the Devils confidence was growing because of their speed, “No, they play their game. We had a real good first of the series, the first two games of the series we came out and played a perfect game, slowed them down, we had scoring opportunities and buried our chances and things went really well. And the third game, again, I thought was a real good hockey game and games 4-5 we weren’t very good and they took it to us, had a great game in Game 6 and then tonight was…wasn’t good enough. We had some chances, their goalie played really well, our goalie played well, it could have been 7-2 or 7-3 in my opinion. Shesty was outstanding for us, just didn’t get it done.”
  • Does it seem like a missed opportunity with the talent that you have, “talent doesn’t mean a thing. It’s great to have talent, but when you gotta play together and work hard together and obviously the four games that we lost we had two goals, that is the bottom line. You aren’t going to win if you get two goals in four games that you lost. We scored five in the other ones that we won and I love to have talent, but you love to have a work ethic and more forechecking and stuff like that and we just didn’t get it done.”
  • Was it just that the consistency in the top-nine wasn’t there, “not enough. Again, we weren’t horrible in the series, it went seven games to a good team over there, we gotta give them some credit, they are a real good hockey team, they finished with 110 points, give or take a couple, so I’m not going to jump all over our guys. We could have been better, but we played a real good hockey team.”
  • What changed from Saturday to tonight, “I think the first two goals changed it. We were playing okay, Shesty was playing real solid and those two goals you give up, you can’t give those up in a playoff series and win and when you got behind like we were starting to press and it cost us a lot. A lot of odd-man rushes that last part of the second period and that really hurts your game.”
  • Did the PP let you down, “no, they had some chances. It would have been great get one of those goals, but I can’t blame the PP when we don’t score any goals. They had their looks and chances but when you don’t score any goals in the game you got no chance to win, obviously.”