7/3/18 Jeff Gorton said that the Rangers are going to play "up-tempo" and that every conversation he has with Quinn focuses on "puck possession" and an "up-tempo" style.
6/5/18 | Bernie Corbett, the "Voice of BU hockey" says that Quinn will bring an "up-tempo, puck-possession approach that will allow for offensive creativity while stressing" defense and the appropriate times to go in transition. (NY Post)
Kevin Hayes said, "we are going to be a fast team and team that other teams don't enjoy playing against." (NYR)
5/31/18 | When asked what kind of style he wanted to play with the Rangers, David Quinn said that you have to coach the team that you have but that he loves to coach and up-tempo style and that is what he plans to do.
Quinn said that his style breaks down as a "pressure, puck possession game that is built around defense." (WFAN)
He said that defense isn't just what happens in your own zone and that he wants to be able to get pucks back quickly, take time and space away and "make people uncomfortable."
Quinn aid that the Rangers want to be "hard to play against, fast and physical."
He added, "we do like to play an up-style, tempo kind of hockey and we will defend." (NYR)
Jeff Gorton said that Quinn is a "really good teacher" that has a high level of "attention to detail" and wants to play a puck possession game.
Gorton said that during the interview process, as the Rangers spoke about the team of game they wanted to play, Quinn was "nodding his head pretty significantly."
Quinn added, "through the process of talking with them, every time they said that this is something they were looking to do, instinctively I would say to myself that this is kind of my coaching DNA. As time went on it seemed like a more natural fit every time we spoke."
Kevin Shattenkirk said that Quinn will "drills the details of the game" into a player, work with them individually and set up a structure based around working hard.
Shattenkirk added that Quinn allows his players to make plays and doesn't take away their creativity but "he wants his teams to defend and defend hard." (NYR)
Adam Rotter: It will be nice to see the Rangers try and play a different style than Alain Vigneault's. Vigneault's style worked at times but it was very opportunistic and obviously had many warts in the defensive zone. When the Rangers made smart plays and could move up the ice quickly, it worked, but too often the Rangers were making predictable plays, turning it over and having to spend most of the game in their own zone. Some of that was style and some of that was the players he had, but puck management and the struggle to make "high percentage plays" were issues dating back to the disastrous West Coast trip that began Vigneault's career with the Rangers.
It seems as if the Rangers under Quinn may look more like they did under John Tortorella than they did under Vigneault. The Rangers won't go all-defense and create a force-field around Henrik Lundqvist like they did at times under Torts, but instead try to play like Columbus, with speed, physicality, structure and offensive creativity. That would seem to fit where the league is and where the Rangers want to go.