5/6/23 | Elliotte Friedman was on NHL Network on Saturday and said, “I don’t think anybody is surprised, I think a lot of people saw this coming. There were some rumors about it during the season, I heard during the year that the Rangers had at least looked around about the possibility of if they made a coaching change, who would be available. I think Gallant was well aware that the ground underneath his feet wasn’t very safe and even when he came out kind of swinging at the media the other day in the sense that he was prepared for the questions and how disappointing they were, I think he still knew this was a possibility and I don’t think anybody is overly surprised that we are at this point today.”

“Well, I think a lot of us are kind of wondering about Joel Quenneville. Right now, as I understand it, Joel Quenneville has not been officially reinstated and I do think at some point in time he’s going to meet with the NHL and talk about if this is the right time to do it. He did speak to the AHL coaches about a month or two ago about some of the courses he’s taken and some of the things he’s done to work his way back. I know he’s been in contact with Kim Davis from the NHL about coming back, but I think there has to be a formal process here and until we get any kind of ruling or clarity on Joel Quenneville not being allowed to return, I think a lot of the search will be around his name.”

“I’m sure we’ll get some clarity in the next couple of days about what was said in terms of were there important players who felt there needed to be a change, was that info taken to Gallant and then he felt there needed to be a change as well. I think a lot of people believe this was trending in this direction anyway, my guess is that the Rangers, in the talks they had with the players after the season saw nothing that made them feel they should change their mind.”

5/4/23 | Elliotte Friedman was on NHL Network on Thursday and said the following about the Rangers and Gerard Gallant:

• “there were times during the season where the Rangers thought about a change and I don’t think that is a huge surprise to Gallant or anybody around them. I think they looked into it, considered it, thought about that if they did something, who could potentially come in? Obviously it didn’t happen. He righted the ship after the trade deadline, I thought he did a really nice job and I thought the Rangers looked really good coming into the playoffs in what everyone expected to be a very close series.”

• “And then guys, you know, the Rangers, there were a lot of things that went wrong. They were up 2-0 and lost the series in seven games, the seventh game was really ugly. When you are the coach you take blame for that, yes, but lets not kid ourselves, this is not solely on the coach. This is a situation where a lot of their best players didn’t play well, especially offensively. Panarin, who in a lot of ways, is the driver of their offense, didn’t play very well and I think the Rangers are kind of going through that now, what does this mean, where are we going from here?”
• “One thing I really do believe is that in this situation the Rangers are kind of looking at it like, ‘we’re not just making a change for anybody.’ I think they want to know what is out there and what the possibilities are if they are going to make a change and I don’t think we have those answers yet. We’ve heard all the Joel Quenneville rumors, I think there is reason to believe that the Rangers are interested, but we don’t know if he’s going to be available and I think all of this stuff has to play itself out, I think, before the Rangers kind of make a decision here necessarily.”
• Are you hearing anything more about Quenneville, “I don’t think this is good thing to guess on or guess percentages on because obviously it’s very sensitive and I don’t think it’s very fair to anyone involved, I don’t like it in this particular case. The one thing I’ll say is this, I believe there are teams who want to talk to Stan Bowman and I believe there are teams that want to talk to Quenneville and what I think that what those teams are asking for is direction from the league on what they are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. In Quenneville’s case he’s been doing some courses, I believe, with Kim Davis, he spoke to the AHL coaches. I think one of the other things that is kind of a situation here is, the playoffs are going really well and I think the league would like the focus to be on the playoffs as opposed to anything else. It’s a subject that brings up a lot of passions for obvious reasons and everybody wants to be careful here and, put it this way, teams are asking about both and asking the league for guidance on what they can do….if Quenneville was available I think there would be quite a few teams that would be interested in him.”