As Brendan Gallagher leaves the Canadiens, he shares stories of the core he helped shape

When the Montreal Canadiens traded Brendan Gallagher to the Vancouver Canucks on Monday, there was some symmetry to the transaction.

Gallagher made it clear that if he had to leave the Canadiens, going back to his hometown and playing for the Canucks would be his preference. As a recognition of everything Gallagher did for the franchise over his 14 seasons in Montreal, the Canadiens did everything in their power to make that preference a reality.

But the symmetry comes from the fact Gallagher is leaving a team coming out of a rebuild and going to a team that is entering one, and Gallagher’s role in the Canadiens’ successful rebuild can’t be discounted when considering why the Canucks were eager to bring him aboard.

“You want to leave the team better than when you showed up,” Gallagher said after the trade Monday. “That’s no different for any player anywhere. That’s all I tried to do. When I showed up as a young player, I had so many good veteran players that showed me the right way to do things and how to be a proper pro. I just tried to pass those lessons along to the young kids that came through there.

“It’s fun to see the young kids grow into mature men and handle different situations. I’m definitely looking forward to watching these guys play. We’ll be keeping tabs on each other. I think they’re in a great spot here moving forward and you wish them nothing but the best.”

The Canadiens’ young core has benefited from Gallagher’s presence since the rebuild began in 2022, so when we had a chance to sit down with him at a Montreal cafe a few weeks ago, we wanted to pick his brain a bit on that young core and get some insight into what they are like.

Nick Suzuki

When Suzuki was named captain of the Canadiens on Sept. 12, 2022 at their season-opening golf tournament, he had Gallagher by his side. There was some thought as to maybe Gallagher being named captain, but entering a rebuild, making Suzuki the youngest captain in franchise history just seemed to make sense.

It might also have been the first sign that perhaps Gallagher would not be around to see the process through to completion.

So Gallagher was at Suzuki’s side that day as an alternate captain, and not front and centre. But he’s been at Suzuki’s side ever since, sitting next to him in the dressing room and guiding him through his captaincy as he attempted to establish himself as an NHL star.

“I remember when he was named captain and I tried maybe to take care of the stuff he was a little less comfortable with, and then he grows into it and it becomes more natural for him,” Gallagher said. “But there’s certain aspects where maybe speaking up in the room, he doesn’t need to be doing that all the time. So maybe just, you see an opportunity, you step in. But you don’t want to overtake him. You know it’s his team and you let him be the leader that he is.

“What Suzy does so well is he shows up. In a big game, you know you can rely on Suze. And you don’t want him thinking about other things and distracting himself from that. You want him to be himself. Like any leader, if you try to be somebody you’re not, guys are going to see right through that and you’re going to be seen as a phony. You’ve got to be true to who you are.”

Off the ice, it would appear Suzuki has a borderline unhealthy relationship with fantasy football.

“I don’t think people realize how into fantasy football he is,” Gallagher said. “He’s probably got about seven or eight dynasty leagues. He has our team league. He’s in the training staff’s league. He’s got a league with all his buddies. He is incredibly dialled into it.

“So I’m in a dynasty league with him. I’m asking him who I should take. He will not help me. He’s in a dynasty baseball league now, so he’s learning all the prospects. Once his girl gets a little older, he’ll have less time I think. But right now he’s very into it.”

The irony is Suzuki refusing to help Gallagher with a dynasty draft pick in a league they are both in sounds exactly like something Gallagher would do himself.

Cole Caufield

Gallagher was at the draft in Vancouver when the Canadiens selected Caufield with the No. 15 pick. He and Shea Weber, who announced the pick on stage, were the first Canadiens players Caufield ever met.

Perhaps more than any other teammate, Gallagher was a role model to Caufield in so many ways as an undersized player who not only made the NHL but thrived there.

Throughout Caufield’s run to 50 goals this season, Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis noted how one of Caufield’s best qualities was how he celebrated his teammates more than he celebrated his own accomplishments.

When given the opportunity to say whatever he wanted about Caufield, Gallagher said the same thing. When Gallagher scored what turned out to be his final goal in a Canadiens uniform on his first shift of Game 5 against the Tampa Bay Lightning, he was interviewed live on “Hockey Night in Canada” after the game. A group of his teammates were waiting for him to finish to congratulate him, with Caufield among them.

“The coolest thing I can say about Cole is that I’ve never played with a teammate that enjoys seeing his teammates have success as much as Cole,” Gallagher said. “That’s an amazing attribute to have; no matter what he’s going through, no matter what’s going on, if somebody else has something amazing happen to him, he’ll be the happiest guy in the room. That’s an incredible attribute to have. I hope he never loses it because seeing it, it amazes me every day.

“But his work ethic, I mean, nothing was easy for Cole in the NHL, nothing was given to him right away. But there was no stopping him.”

Juraj Slafkovský

When Slafkovský was a rookie, he would only tape the toe of his stick. Gallagher tormented him over it. Daily.

One day at practice, Slafkovský decided to tape his full stick, and after scoring a goal on a drill he pointed to his stick in Gallagher’s general direction. He went back to his original tape job not long afterwards.

From Day 1, Slafkovský and Gallagher had a love-hate relationship. They would argue over soccer, and Gallagher would just look for any way to get under Slafkovský’s skin. But when that relationship was characterized as love-hate to Gallagher, he quickly corrected it.

“It’s all love,” he said.

And it had an impact on Slafkovský.

“Just the way he works every day and how hard he plays for the logo. He doesn’t care about himself, only cares about his team,” Slafkovský said at the end of the season, not long after Gallagher announced he would be leaving the Canadiens. “One of the best guys I could ever play with.”

Gallagher’s role in Caufield’s development is easy to assume because they are both undersized players who had to overcome similar biases to reach the NHL. But he had a role in Slafkovský’s development as well despite being on opposite ends of the NHL size spectrum. And to see Slafkovský emerge as a legit NHL star in the making just as he leaves fills Gallagher with pride.

“Seeing Slaf evolve into what he is now has been incredible,” Gallagher said. “He’s really put in the work. You see how he can dominate and take over a game, you see for a big man the poise he has. The way he’s evolving, he’ll continue to get better and better. I think he’s such an important piece for this team.”

But Gallagher just couldn’t help himself. He left with one parting shot.

“He still gets blown up a bit too often,” he said. “Maybe I’ll get him next year.”

Lane Hutson and Ivan Demidov

Hutson comes off as someone who eats, sleeps and breathes hockey 24 hours a day. On the day Gallagher was traded, he was on the ice at the Canadiens’ training facility with Jake Evans and, of course, Hutson.

But Hutson is not always all business.

“He’s got a very funny sense of humour,” Gallagher said. “It’s a very dry — very dry — sense. You’ve got to know he’s joking to get it. But Lane’s funny.”

Gallagher had less time to get to know Demidov, but still found a way to try to get under his skin. Demidov is a huge soccer fan, and more specifically, a huge Cristiano Ronaldo fan. Demidov was recently in Miami to watch Portugal’s last group stage game in the World Cup, making the trip with his girlfriend Ekaterina Yakovleva and teammate Jakub Dobeš.

In an effort to engage the rookie forward, Gallagher took to pretending he was a big fan of Lionel Messi. Gallagher is a big soccer fan, but he’s not actually a big Messi guy. It just served his purposes for this relationship.

On the day we spoke, Messi had scored his first World Cup hat trick the evening prior for Argentina, and Ronaldo was set to play for Portugal later that afternoon.

“I texted Demi last night,” Gallagher said. “And now, when Ronaldo doesn’t score today, Demi will get another one.”

Ronaldo, of course, did not score that day.

Hutson and Demidov being joined at the hip is not news — Gallagher shared that not only do they spend tons of time together in their hotel room on the road, their dinner of choice is takeout Chipotle, eaten in the room — but it is interesting to hear how the two of them carved out their space on the team plane.

“Those young guys, I mean, you can see them coming up and like, they started their own card table on the plane and they do their…” Gallagher began.

Which is when we had to jump in. Who’s at the card table?

“We had about six card tables,” Gallagher said. “So we had what we called the NHL table with me, Jake (Evans) — (Josh Anderson) left because he was tired of being bullied by me and Jake. Patty (Laine) was there. We had so many different guys going in and out through this season with Patty, Joe Veleno, (Alexandre Carrier), Phil (Danault).

“That was the NHL table, that was where the best players played. Then we had the AHL table which was Suzy, (Alex Newhook), Cole and Andy played with them. Then we had the East Coast table, which was Slaf, Arber (Xhekaj), (Kaiden Guhle), and (Jayden) Struble. And then we had the kids table, which was Dobeš, Demi, Lane, and (Oliver Kapanen).”

The names of those care tables are oddly symbolic with Gallagher’s departure for Vancouver.

The NHL table will have an available seat next season. The person whose seat’s been freed up has done so much to ensure the Canadiens’ young players have the tools they need to have some upward mobility in the card table hierarchy.