MONTREAL — The curse was lifted, the dragon was slayed, the overtime/shootout demon was laid to rest, with the home team wearing bleu instead of rouge.
Just when you thought the Montreal Canadiens needed to burn those reverse retro jerseys, they broke their 0-9 post-regulation slump dressed in them.
“They look too good to get rid of,” said Brendan Gallagher after the Canadiens beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-4 in the shootout at the Bell Centre on Saturday. “Nice to end a couple of streaks — (the first win in five games wearing the reverse retros) and got an overtime win, too.”
Hallelujah.
The Canadiens never would’ve made it to the extra frame without Gallagher, who William Wallace’d them into the fight when they so desperately needed someone to. And make no mistake, this started off as one of those nights — 24 hours after a disastrous overtime loss to these same Canucks, after J.T. Miller (who scored the winner in that game) called this one Vancouver’s most important one of the season, with a chance to pull one point ahead of the Canadiens in the North Division standings.
The Canadiens needed someone to put the team on their shoulders — especially with leading scorer Tyler Toffoli missing his first game of this campaign with a lower-body injury — and that was Gallagher’s music.
Blow a lead in the middle period after dominating for half the game? No problem, just throw Gallagher over the boards.
It was a little over five minutes after Brock Boeser made it 2-1 Canucks on the power play that Gallagher stepped onto the ice, floored the gas pedal and double clutched his way 1-on-2 down the left wing. He backed Tyler Myers off the line, started the pressure in Vancouver’s zone and then jumped into the slot before baiting Myers into a penalty.
The chaos Gallagher created on the play left Tomas Tatar wide open to score his first goal in 12 games to tie things up.
Need a lead to go to the third period with? No problem, send Gallagher.
With a minute and a half to play in the second, the five-foot-nine winger trapped Canucks forward Adam Gaudette, stole the puck off him just inside the offensive blue line, dove to get it over to Tatar, picked himself up, rammed himself into Canucks defenceman Alex Edler, created a screen in front of goaltender Braden Holtby, got shoved to the ice and then celebrated from his backside as Joel Edmundson’s point shot clanked off the bar to put the Canadiens up 3-2.
And when Montreal allowed goals 33 seconds apart to go down 4-3 in the first minute of the third period, things got tense.
“We were playing a good game,” said Canadiens coach Dominique Ducharme. “But it seemed every time we made a mistake, it cost us. They weren’t so much mental mistakes, but more mistakes in execution. We made them and we paid cash.”
And then some players initiated the refund process.
“Guys like (Shea Weber), our captain, and Corey Perry,” said Ducharme, “those veteran guys who just have good words, too, on the bench and can calm things down with the guys.”
On the ice, Gallagher, Tatar and Phillip Danault ramped things up. It was at 5:29 of the third period that Danault pulled an offensive-zone faceoff straight back to Gallagher, who put everything he had into a wrist shot that beat Holtby for his 12th goal of the season.
The three of them played a dominant game, including an excellent shift in overtime before Gallagher sat on the bench, rubbed Jesperi Kotkaniemi’s head for good luck and watched Tatar score the winner in the shootout.
And there he was afterwards, ready to answer questions from the podium, with a cut on his right cheekbone, a mark on his left one, a gash in his lip and a tooth missing from the bottom row of his smile.
“I used to rub (Canadiens prospect) Cale Fleury’s head (during the shootout), and he’s not here, so I need a new guy and KK was beside me,” Gallagher said. “I kinda forgot about it until right before (Tatar) went, so I started rubbing his head. It’s 2-for-2, so next shootout — I’m pretty superstitious — you can count on that being a thing that I’ll be doing.”
It’s just one of dozens of things Gallagher does that makes him such an important player to the Canadiens, the 28-year-old who general manager Marc Bergevin got choked up about after giving him a six-year, $39-million contract extension over the off-season.
The stuff on the ice is where the value is so obvious night in, night out.
“He’s a little pitbull,” said Tatar. “He’s very strong around the net, and he might be one of the best in the league at the job that he’s doing. He reminds me of (former Detroit Red Wing and infamous net-front piñata) Tomas Holmstrom a lot — he’s very strong around the net. You don’t see many players doing that job that he does, and he does it so well. In that area, he knows how to battle, how to react. I ask him a lot of times for tips — how to be making his shot tips and to create a chance out of nowhere. He’s just very good around the net.
“To be honest, I wish I could do that. He’s one of the rare players who does it and I think he’s very valuable to our team.”
Off the ice, Gallagher’s the guy who everyone rallies around. He’s the guy who fires up and challenges his teammates in the room, stands up for them in the media, like he ritually has for Price when the goaltender has received heat from all sides.
The Edmonton native even went out of his way to praise Price on Saturday, after Price came up with the big saves when it mattered most but allowed four goals on the first 14 shots he faced.
On the ones Price made in the shootout, after Boeser scored on Vancouver’s first attempt, Gallagher said, “I think our bench had a lot of confidence. It’s pretty easy when you’ve got that guy in your net. Especially on a Saturday night. We were feeling pretty good he was going to make the save. Once the first shot beat him, he wasn’t getting beat again. It was nice for (Tatar) to give him some support there, and obviously the skill guys stepped up and did their job.”
Price knew he had an opportunity to make a difference in the end because the gritty leader did his part.
“Gally’s an awesome teammate,” said the 33-year-old who’s been alongside Gallagher for nine seasons. “His work ethic obviously speaks for itself. He’s very supportive off the ice, and he’s fun to hang out with. Over all these years, we’ve had a lot of great times together. And I appreciate him sticking up for me, too.”
