After an epic triple-overtime loss on Tuesday night New York Rangers head coach, Gerrard Gallant has a simple message for his team, “Move On”.
The New York Rangers didn’t practice on Wednesday following their game one, triple-overtime defeat to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Instead, head coach Gerard Gallant held a media session, along with some player availability, displaying confidence, and calm which shows why his players respect him so much. There was no panic in his voice, no threats of things would change for game two but instead, he told the media and all that were listening what he expects of his team Thursday night.
“Move on, get ready for the next one”, was the message he told his players. The head coach, in his first playoff series behind the Rangers bench, went on to say, “It was a battle last night. We got the short end of the stick, but it’s one game so you’ve got to move on. No big deal. We would have loved to have won it, but we’ve got to battle back and win the next one. Last night it was tough, no doubt, the game is over and you lose in six periods and you lose your home ice a little bit. But we still believe we’re a real good team. We still believe we’re going to win this series. Tomorrow night is a big game for us now.”
That confidence is a breath of fresh air that has not been seen or heard in several past seasons.
The team recognizes what went wrong after the first 25 minutes of the game, in which their speed and physicality enabled the team to build a 2-0 lead early in the second period. The wheels fell off the bus after that with the Penguins outshooting the Rangers 25-8 in that second period.
Defenseman Adam Fox, who logged 44:28 of ice time while scoring a power-play goal, talked about what went wrong against a good Penguins team,
“We’ve talked about it, that first period we were real good and even at the start of the second and the tide kind of turned there,” defenseman Adam Fox said. “I think we let the game get away from us there. It’s definitely a lesson to be learned. They had 25 shots in the second period and it’s tough to hold a lead when you’re giving up that many shots, that many chances.”
Echoing a similar view of what the Penguins did so well, Gallant wants the team to focus on the style of play they demonstrated in the first portion of the game and at the same time keep the Pens away from what made them successful on Tuesday.
“Once we started letting them go ‘D’-to-‘D’ across the ice, then the game opened up and that’s not where we want to play,” Gallant said. “We have to be quicker on the forecheck. Puck management hurt us probably halfway through the second. Instead of driving the net and getting pucks behind their defensemen, we started making plays in the high slot and they were broken up and then they started going the other way.”
The Blueshirts look to implement their coach’s message for game 2 Thursday night at MSG.