Peter Laviolette met with the media following the Rangers win over Buffalo and said (MSG):

• On the game, “good start, the way we wanted, I thought we were really sharp in the first period, ready to skate, ready to compete and it kind of stayed that way through the whole game. Specialty teams, we’ve been putting in a lot of time and saw some really good results, PP moved the puck I thought pretty good and the PK was absolutely courageous. The way they defended and blocked shots was something else…it’s one win, a good start.”

• On doing the little things, “I agree and simple things like back pressuring pucks and trying to stay in the battles and attention to detail, there was a lot that went into training camp, they put a lot into it, worked really hard and it’s nice to…we called it before the game ‘taking it for a test drive.’ It’s one game, but there were positives to pull from that and the guys played hard.”
• On the PK, “It’s simple until it’s your body in front of the shot and then maybe it’s not so simple (laugh). They did a really good job, it was, like I said, courageous to stand there and get teed off on. Bonino had 4-5, Trouba had some, Lindgren had some, Pitlick. The PKers really worked to do their job tonight and it was noticeable by everybody.”
• “There are still some things and it’s early and we’ll continue to teach and show and try to get better, I just thought that we came out and you could see it coming in the last two games, the results weren’t there, the exhibition games, the practices  after that they were doing things at a faster pace, higher pace and it’s nice we get rewarded with a win and try to take a little bit of confidence into the second game.”
• On Lafreniere scoring early, “And I said that this morning, he had a couple of really good practices, those were his best practices of training camp. Maybe just getting back and settled and working through camp. To me, he took a step from those practices and brought it into the game. The line was excellent. It was good to get Fil back in there, he’s trying to get up to speed a little bit with everybody else because he missed some time. I thought Artemi was excellent tonight with his game and the line was really effective.”
• On turning defense to offense, “It was quick, the transition and happy to see that. The one thing that maybe we were talking about and trying to get better and maybe it never really showed in training camp was the quick transition, was to bring more pucks to the net and try to jump on teams and it was nice to get some rewards back on that tonight.”
• On Panarin, “I thought he played a really smart game tonight, I didn’t see high risk hockey, I saw a really good player making plays out there tonight I don’t think we want to get into a high-risk game, I think we want to have good structure, play good defense and with that I think we’ll be able to generate and he’s certainly one of those players that can generate.”
• On the 1-3-1 system, “You know, I’m thinking that is the one thing we gotta go back and look at and get better at. We were into it quite a few times, but I still think we gotta continue to get guys comfortable on the forecheck in the neutral zone and defensive zone coverage and there was a lot of stuff that came at them in training camp and you gotta sift through 60 people or so and then eventually we  got down and started working at it. You could just see signs of everything coming a little bit better. It’s just a step from training camp and the last two games where we didn’t get on the right side of the scoreboard to some good practices. It’s a positive step.”