1st Period
No Scoring
2nd Period
No Scoring
3rd Period
00:19 New York Pavel Buchnevich (18) ASST: Brady Skjei (16), Kevin Shattenkirk (25) 1-0
08:33 Toronto Zach Hyman (19) ASST: John Tavares (41), Mitchell Marner (62) 1-1
OT Period
01:48 New York Ryan Strome (15) ASST: Boo Nieves (6) 2-1

Stats:

Rangers coach David Quinn met with the media prior to tonight’s game against Toronto and said (NYR):

• On the lineup tonight, “Freddy is out, Brickley will be out, Kreider didn’t make the trip and Fast is out.”
• On the lineup combinations, “Chytil will be with Namestnikov and Letteri, Lias will be with Strome and Vesey, Howden will be with Boo and Smitty. Lemieux is with Mika and Buchie.”
• On Lemieux skating on the top line, “there is a lot that goes into putting lines together and I want to see what Lemieux can do with Mika and Buchnevich. He has 12 goals in limited opportunity, I thought it would be a good opportunity to put him with Mika and Buchie and I think Lias has been playing well and want to give him a chance with Strome and Vesey and I liked the other line with Fil, Vinny and Namestnikov.”
• On Lettieri, “Vinny, one of his great strengths is how competitive he is and how hard he tries, I think sometimes he tries too hard and puts himself out of position. I think he needs to play a little bit more of a calmer game, a little bit more structured game and that will put him in a position to be more creative offensively and put his strengths to his advantage, mainly his shot.”
• On the week coming up, “we’ve been in a tough stretch here and nothing feels better than winning. We’ve talked ad-nauseum about our situation and our struggles, we want to win a hockey game, tonight is there is a way that we will have to go about doing that against a team of this magnitude and with the talent they have. We want to play purposeful hockey. We did some good things against Detroit but not good enough. You get two goals and spend all that time in the offensive zone, we’ve talked all year about having more of an edge to our game offensively, gotta beat people off walls, when we have a choice to go inside our outside we need to go inside.”

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Webb is listed as a Special Assistant to the Equipment Staff.

David Quinn met with the media on Friday following practice and said (NYR):

• On being able to have practice time, “Any time you can have real practices, I’m sure they aren’t tickled pink about it but that is life, it gives you a chance to reiterate things that can get lost over the course of a season when you don’t have a chance to practice. Stuff we can get better at.”
• On the Leafs, “you fuel their offense and it’s going to be a long night. That is going to be key against anybody but especially a team with this skill set. You have to manage the puck and if you turn it over you gotta make them go 200 ft, 190 ft, you can’t let them go 90 ft, 100 ft because that is when you get burned. You just have to manage pucks and make good decisions.”
• On Staal, “felt better today, see how he feels tomorrow.”
• On Kreider, “he is out, won’t make the trip. Day to day.”
• This is a new thing with Kreider, “yep.”
• Is Georgiev in net, “yes, Georgie will play tomorrow night.”
• On Georgiev’s last start against the Leafs, “it was funny, I don’t want to take anything away from him, he was great, don’t get me wrong, but they had 25 shots on the PP and we have to clean that up obviously. I was talking to Zucc, probably about a week before he got traded, we were talking about that game and he said that Georgie played well but it never felt that way. They were shooting pucks and getting great chances but 5 on 5 we actually played pretty well that game. Hopefully we can do some things better on the PK to not allow them to get 25 shots on the PP, certainly that will help our cause. You are talking about one of the most skilled and talented teams in the league. They are going to get some chances, you just want to try and minimize them.”
• More on Georgiev, “He has proven what he is capable of handling, he has been in some big pressure games against really good teams and done very well. Just another opportunity for him to continue to grow, develop and get better.”
• On Brendan Smith’s season, “When I first saw him play he was a forward, he was 15-years old, but he transferred to being a defenseman. He has those instincts naturally because he has played so much forward. He’s so competitive and plays at a pace that he is hard to contain and not easily denied. When he gets the puck in the offensive zone you better be ready to defend him because he is going to earn every ounce of ice. He’s a hockey player and done a good job.”

Chris Drury was on the NHL Network earlier this week and was asked about the Rangers and said (NHL.com):

• On the rebuild so far, “I think it’s been pretty good. I know at times it’s hard on the players and we’ve had to trade a lot of really good players and really good Rangers, so I think it’s hard at times on the staff and players and it’s not the easiest but with what we set out to do and the course we set for the organization is pretty good for the last 14 months. If you look at depth charts and prospect charts 18 months ago and today, it’s certainly a different look and we are excited about the players we have gotten through trade or the draft and players we are going to draft in June in Vancouver with all of these picks.”
• On Vitali Kravtsov, “I don’t think down the stretch, we will look to get him in after the season is over, I don’t think there is any rush or any reason to force it down the stretch, I think Jeff would say the same thing. We are looking forward to getting him over as soon as we can when his contract runs out in Russia and hopefully he is going to have a big summer of training and hit the ground running in training camp in September.”
• On if he would like to be a GM at some point, “I would like to be, I won’t lie and say I wouldn’t but a lot of people would give that same answer. At the moment I absolutely love where I am working, I couldn’t have a better boss than Jeff Gorton, not a day goes by when I’m not asking him or learning something. I get to see a lot of different things which is great and excited to do it for the team I grew up rooting for and in the region I grew up living in and now I just want to help in the rebuild at each step along the way.”