BROSSARD, Que. — This was Brendan Gallagher as we’ve always known him. Raw, honest and real, until he appeared as we’ve never seen him — deeply wounded.
Yes, Gallagher played through immeasurable pain throughout his 14 years in a Montreal Canadiens uniform. Through broken bones and torn muscles. Through tough losses and lost seasons.
But he never gave off the impression it hurt him too much.
Gallagher’s last experience with the team did, though, and it’s hard to imagine him quickly getting over that.
“It’s pretty clear I’ll be kind of moving on here,” he said on Monday — and he will.
Gallagher will be traded to another team in short order, given an opportunity to play out the final season of his contract, which will pay him $4 million and count for $6.5 million on the salary cap.
But the pain of his final months with the Canadiens won’t soon heal.
He bottled it after being scratched in mid-March for the first time since he missed the first-ever NHL game he was eligible to play in, but it overwhelmed him by June 1, just days after he was cast aside from a 16th contest of the Canadiens’ 19-game run through the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
"First and foremost, so thankful and fortunate to have spent as much time as I have here," Gallagher started. "The fans, right from Day 1, it's been truly a privilege to play in front of them. It's an opportunity not a lot of players get in this league. I've gotten to do it for 14 years now. It's not lost on me how special it was to call the Bell Centre home.
"The very first time I set foot in this organization, the management, coaches, teammates I've had along the years, there's been ups and downs, but I don't have a single regret.”
Then Gallagher acknowledged his reality, and his tears weren’t the only ones flowing in the Canadiens’ room after he did.
As journalists, our own end of this cold, calculated business is complete emotional divestment from wins and losses. We follow teams and observe, report and analyze their results having almost forgotten what it felt like to grow up cheering for them.
We do cheer for stories, however, and we certainly root for the human beings who author the most compelling stories, which Gallagher delivered from the minute he arrived in the Canadiens’ room as a fresh-faced 20-year-old.
His last one from there — of a grizzled veteran dealing with the natural order of professional sport — levelled everyone standing in front of him.
How can one not empathize with the cruelty of a top athlete made to feel too old at only 34. Even if we know that’s how this game goes, it still hits hard.
Only those who refuse to accept that reality defy it for longer than expected.
Phillip Danault, who’s just 33, knows.
He had more points (eight) than playoff games played (six) last spring in Los Angeles— giving the Kings as good a performance as anyone his junior in the first-round loss to Connor McDavid and the eventual Cup finalist Edmonton Oilers — and yet he started and ended this season in California being made to feel tarnished.
With the writing on the wall, Danault sought to go where he might still be valued.
Conveniently, that turned out to be Montreal, where he was traded in December. The Victoriaville, Que., native, was repatriated to the Canadiens, with whom he originally blossomed into a two-way centre before eventually pricing himself out of town as a free agent in 2021.
The Kings gave Danault a six-year, $33-million contract just two-and-a-half months before the Canadiens gave Gallagher a six-year, $39-million deal, and both eventually hit the crossroads with their respective teams at similar junctures.
It was time for Danault to move on from Los Angeles, and it looked like the Kings were justified to push him towards deciding that as his results left much to be desired there before they were somewhat underwhelming here.
Not that Danault didn’t do exactly what was asked of him to help stabilize the Canadiens when they desperately needed stabilization. There just weren’t many signs in his regular-season performance he’d be able to elevate his game to the extremely high level he played at in the playoffs.
Danault did it, though, by blocking out the noise.
“(Being) doubted, I mean it’s part of the game,” Danault said on Monday. “As you get older, there’s always people that doubt, that try to put you under the bus and try to end your career for you as well. So, you can’t listen to what people say. Obviously, the league is really fast, and smart guys play even longer because they adapt to the game and adapt their role as well. For Gally, he’s the hardest worker out there. No matter what age he’ll be, he’ll be the hardest…Sometimes changing teams, changing air, helps give you a second wind…”
Sometimes it just takes someone believing in you when others don’t.
That has always propelled Gallagher to great heights.
The five-foot-nine, 185-pound grinding winger was told he was too small, too unrefined, and too brittle to excel at the higher levels of hockey. He was a ninth-round pick in the 2007 Western Hockey League Draft before the Canadiens selected him 147th overall in 2010. Doubts persisted after he debuted with the Vancouver Giants by scoring 10 goals and 31 points in 52 games as a rookie, and they never went away after three straight 40-goal seasons in junior preceded a great half-season with the American Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs and a 15-goal, 28-point rookie campaign in the lockout-abridged 2013 NHL season.
But Gallagher was a broken record over the years about how the doubts never fuelled him to all he accomplished in hockey, always insisting his desire to reward the faith of his believers was his only motivation.
Not being given the opportunity to do that once more — just a year removed from a 21-goal season — cut him deep.
“I thought I’d be in there,” Gallagher said after being withheld from the last game of the Eastern Conference Final against the Carolina Hurricanes. “I was actually looking forward to the opportunity to try to pull guys into the fight. I thought that’s something that I’ll never lose, and something I do well. I’m sure I would have been able to.”
Now, he’ll carry that pain until the opportunity to pull new teammates into the fight arrives.
It could come in Vancouver, where the rebuilding Canucks could do far worse than to bring in a player who summers in nearby Tsawwassen, B.C., and would welcome the opportunity to winter in their city while mentoring their young players.
Knowing Gallagher’s drive, his lifelong pursuit of the Cup won’t end there — if that’s where he starts next season.
We'd bet on him playing well no matter where he lands and finding himself on a contender by next trade deadline. He said he has “plenty more to give,” and, despite a down season with the Canadiens, we believe he'll prove that and likely earn himself one more contract after his current one expires in 2027.
This sad end to Gallagher’s time in Montreal will certainly not be the last story he writes as a player.
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