Montreal Canadiens Forward Brendan Gallagher Is Rewarded for His Consistent Effort

It was a rollercoaster of a contest on Saturday at the Bell Centre as the Montreal Canadiens grabbed a second point in a 4-3 shootout win after blowing a 3-0 lead to the New York Rangers.

Brendan Gallagher opened the scoring 11:37 into the match with his sixth of the season. The goal ended a 24-game drought for the forward that began after his last goal on November 11th against the Bruins.

Gallagher’s goal was not his typical style from the blue paint or while crashing the net. He scored on an accurate shot that beat Rangers goaltender Jonathan Quick to the top corner while fighting off coverage by Blake Wheeler to get the needed space to bury the puck. 

In addition to not scoring in nearly two months, Gallagher obtained a meagre four assists. Despite the lack of production, he remained confident and felt about his game.

Following Saturday's game day skate, head coach Martin St. Louis said that the effort was there and that the statistics did not reflect the quality of number 11's performance. The coach showed his confidence in the Alberta native with an average of 14:38 in ice time and consistently using Gallagher on the power play unit the entire time.

"He plays the same way every single night. I don't think his game dips or anything if he's not scoring. He's still crashing the net, he does a lot of good things for us out there," said David Savard speaking about Gallagher. "If he's scoring or not, he's under the skin of the opponent and he always brings his best game every night. That's why he's been here and that's why he's one of our leaders." 

The veteran defenseman was not worried that his teammate would eventually light the red lamp again. "He's gonna keep going and going, and you know at some point it's just going to get through. He's going to get a few ugly [goals] and some nice ones too. Tonight was a great a shot but he's always crashing the net and he's known to be a pain in the ass to play against," said Savard.  

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