Brendan Gallagher and the Guys Who Deserved More
"I should rely a little less on success, a little more on divisible time"
"Runaway Dog" - Retirement Party
The Moments That Defined Brendan Gallagher
There are not a ton of posterization moments in hockey. It's not like basketball where guys get dunked on and get turned into posters hanging in the bedrooms of children all over the world. Most hockey posters are just a dude skating with the puck looking for a breakout pass. Hockey just does not have a lot of moments for that sort of thing.
Brendan Gallagher has that moment. It came late in game one of the 2021 Stanley Cup Final where the Tampa Bay Lightning led 4-1. Gallagher, knowing full well this game was headed for "message sending" territory, went to the net hard on a relatively benign play. For his troubles, he was dropped on his head by former Montreal Canadien, Mikhail Sergachev.. The photo that resulted is one of the toughest pictures in recent memory. With blood pouring down his head, Gallagher looked stoic and seemingly at peace with the moment. For most, this is the definitive Brendan Gallagher moment.
I have a different one.
On February 9th 2025, the Montreal Canadiens played a game against the very same Tampa Bay Lightning. The Habs gave up two goals in the first 11 minutes before getting one back before the period ended. That goal came from Gallagher; a wrist shot that developed on an Alex Newhook drive to the slot on the powerplay. Heading into the intermission, Gallagher gave the Canadiens life.
Going into the third period, Montreal found themselves in another two goal deficit. Gallagher adds another goal, doing everything he can to will the Montreal Canadiens back into the hockey game. The Habs surrendered an empty net goal and the Lightning went on to win 5-3.
Okay, who cares? The Habs lost. Why does this matter?
With those two goals and with the Canadiens losing the game, Brendan Gallagher became the Habs' all-time leader in goals in losing efforts. Gallagher went into the game tied with Maurice Richard and the two goals put him alone at the top of the list. He finished his Canadiens career with 85 goals in losses. The closest active Canadiens are Nick Suzuki with 73 (already third all-time) and Cole Caufield with 66 (already fifth all-time). Richard scored 544 goals in his career and only 78 of them came in losses.
The one we called Gally leaves the Canadiens 14th all-time in goal scoring with 246 goals. So many of those goals were like the two in that game against Tampa in 2025. His team was down and he did what he could to pull them into the fight. When Habs fans were clamoring for Gallagher to be brought back into the lineup in the conference finals, this was the reason why.
The top 13 in all-time Habs goal scoring, on average, saw 14.5% of their goals scored in losing efforts. Brendan Gallagher scored 34.5% of his goals in losses. Over a third of his goals were exercises in futility or, at the very least with Gary Bettman's loser point, only potentially half as valuable.
When I look at the Habs top scorers all time, it's still weird seeing Gallagher's name pop up. It's even weirder seeing a 14 in the "Years" column on Hockey-Reference, but that's a feature of being human. What's weirder is the group Gallagher now finds himself in and how that group is emblematic of an era the Canadiens need to avoid recreating.
The Group Just Below
The reason I think it is weird is why it's still kind of weird seeing Saku Koivu's name on these lists. He's 28th all-time in goal scoring for the Canadiens and 28.3% of his goals came in losses. Tomáš Plekanec is 18th and scored 30% of his goals in losses. Among Habs' defensemen, Andrei Markov has the most Habs' goals in a losing effort with 38 (31.9%). Joining him in the top ten are Jeff Petry with 28 (40%), Sheldon Souray with 24 (38.7%), P.K. Subban with 24 (38%) and Shea Weber with 21 (36.2%).
(Before you ask, I don't put Carey Price in this group. He is the winningest goaltender in the history of the franchise. Price is something else entirely.)
There is a tier of Habs' legends at the top of these respective leaderboards but there is a category just below them where all of these guys live. Plekanec, Koivu, Markov, all those guys. What's astonishing about this group of guys is they made names for themselves on forgettable versions of the Canadiens. Gallagher has played himself into this infamous group. Everyone in this group played a big role on a small team; a team that would have benefited from these guys playing less critical roles. Imagine Plekanec behind a true number one centre once Koivu left. Hell, imagine Koivu with a more robust cast around him instead of having that one elite year in 2007-08 and not much else to write home about. These are guys we want to see carry the torch out at the Bell Centre before playoff games because their individual efforts are worth celebrating even if the team's result is not.
The Group Just Below is a group of what ifs. Brendan Gallagher's past is full of what ifs. What if he could stay healthy? What if they got a 100-point scorer and a 50-goal scorer sooner? What if these guys got a better ending? One with a parade and a 35-pound hunk of metal?
Gallagher was waiting for some of these "what ifs" to be answered; for the Canadiens to build a team ready to compete for a Stanley Cup. He went to a conference final with Montreal in 2014, got to a Stanley Cup Final with the Habs back in 2021, and played a depth role on the latest version of the team to win two playoff rounds. In between that cup final run and the latest playoff stint, Gallagher patiently waited for the Habs' first true rebuild to bear fruit. It would have been easy for him to say he did not have the time to sit around and wait for this group to get back to winning. Maybe he forces the issue and gets his name on a cup somewhere else. But it was important to him to be a Montreal Canadien and see this through to the end.
All that waiting has seemingly rewarded him with nothing but hurt feelings. Just as the engine is about to turn over, Gallagher is out of time here. It is a rare event for a 5th round draft pick to play over 900 games for the team that drafted him. In fact, it's only happened twice. Thomas Steen did it with the original Winnipeg Jets and Jamie Benn is doing it in Dallas. Gallagher's patience and loyalty ended without payoff and it's sort of emblematic of the way Gallagher played the game in Montreal. When Gallagher was doing the right things, he was going to the net and being rewarded with a glove to the face or a disallowed goal. This ending in disappointment is, in a way, poetic based on how Gallagher's tenure in Montreal went. This feels like destiny in a sick way. If you keep getting back up when you get punched in the mouth, I think you're going to keep getting punched in the mouth.
Gallagher played a big role in some very lean years in Montreal and in a perfect world, there would be a more satisfying ending. But we don't live in a movie. There are no credits to roll and there is no curtain coming down. The show keeps going and sometimes the good guys don't get what they've set out for. In a more just world, a lot of those goals he scored ended with his team picking up wins. The Canadiens did not win games because of Brendan Gallagher like they should have. They lost games in spite of him.
Gallagher's story isn't over though. Some team will find him to be a great help. If you are reading this, he has been traded, but I am not sure where he's going. No matter where he goes, he's going to help that team's younger players learn what it means to be a good pro or to teach a group what it means to hate losing. He's going to go to the net and make sure opposing goalies know how many stitches are applied to the G's on the back of his sweater. But most of all, he's going to refuse to accept defeat. He's going to keep pulling his team back in the fight because that's what he's always done, even when his team doesn't want to fight as much as he does.
Gallagher's next mission is simple. If he stays true to himself, he will find success wherever hockey takes him. Even if his body is losing the battle against time, his heart isn't.
For the Canadiens, the goal is more abstract. The Habs need to make Brendan Gallagher the last of The Group Just Below. Make this the last lifer moving on without the ultimate payoff. Make this the last tough goodbye.
At least for a little while.