Rangers Report Blog

John Tortorella:

“I thought it was very important to win a game like that this time of year. That’s what I was most happy about. We end up scoring some goals the last little while, winning games that way. You could see it right from the start—I thought our start was good—and you could see Vokoun was solid, and it was going to be one of those games. I was happy with the patience of the team, to stay with it, continue to defend. Hank made some big saves at key times, but I thought we defended really well, and just stayed with it.”

“These games are going to be tough, and what I was worried about was, after an emotional win on the road, were we going to be ready? And we were. We’ve got to start trusting our hockely club, that they understand where they’re at, and this is another step in that direction, that these guys get it. Because I thought we played hard right on through.”

On no penalties:

“We’re trying to stay disciplined. Billy (McCreary and Francois St. Laurent, the referees), they let us play a little bit and I don’t think there was too much that they missed. They just let us play and discipline was a big part of it. In a tight game like this, maybe you take an offensive-zone penalty, it comes back and bites you. So I liked a lot about our game tonight. These are tough games to play, when you come off an emotional win. I thought we stood in and played very well.”

On Lundqvist:

“I don’t think he got much work, but he ended up making three or four really good saves. Makes one at the end there where we just lost a battle in front with the goalie pulled; it was a quick shot. Makes a good saves there. Made a couple other ones at key times. He’s played very well.”

On the defensive effort without Marc Staal:

“Yeah, we continue to find our way. We want to get Marc back. He’s a big part of us, but we’ve done this all year long with people going out. Other people have stepped up and, again, we found a way to win a tight game after playing some games where we’ve scored some goals and gave up a lot of chances while doing that. It’s against a different team, and I understand where they’re at and where they’re going, but we still defended well. I think that’s very important that we defend first and work off of that.”

On McCabe playing against his former team:

“We’re in there for a meeting, and we don’t really bother them too much. We asked Caber for some information on the team and he put some money on the board—maybe I shouldn’t say that (historically, players playing against their former team always tack money to the bulletin board, and whomever scores the game-winner collects it).

“But he knows those guys, he’s just been traded a few weeks ago. But all the stuff that they go through (in the lockerroom) we’re not around. We just go in for the meeting.”

On getting a big play from the Anisimov line:

“That line played well all night long. They came up empty a number of times, but they grinded. I’ll tell you, to beat Vokoun tonight was going to have to be a play like that: Patience. The first shot, he was gobbling up. There wasn’t going to be many rebounds. It was going to have to be a play of misdirection and some patience. Cally makes a great play, the forechecking prior to it was good, and it stood. And that line, deservedly so, gets the winner, because they were underneath the hashmarks all night.”