Brendan Gallagher finally reveals the unexpected person who shaped his Canadiens career
Brendan Gallagher's 14-year run with the Canadiens is winding down, and GM Kent Hughes has given the 34-year-old's agent permission to find him a trade.
One season remains on Gallagher's contract, carrying a $6.5 million cap hit. That number is going to make this trade difficult.
He played 77 games this season and finished with 7 goals and 23 points. Not the Gallagher of a few years ago, and the data backs that up.
His last 10 games produced just 2 goals and no assists. His last 5 produced the same line: 2 goals, no assists.
In the playoffs, he appeared in only 3 games and posted 1 goal, 1 point. That's the full playoff stat line for a guy earning $6.5 million.
Head coach Martin St-Louis scratched him 5 times down the stretch, then left him out of 16 of 19 playoff games. That tells you everything about how the organization views him right now.
The $6.5M question: who actually takes this contract?
Gallagher is not a bad hockey player. He is, at this point in his career, a limited one. His value has always lived in the dirty areas around the crease, the second and third efforts, the stuff that doesn't show up cleanly in a box score.
But a cap hit like that, for a bottom-six forward entering his age-35 season, is a tough sell league-wide.
The Canadiens finished 48-24-10 with 106 points this year, ranking 6th overall. They have cap to manage and youth to protect. Keeping Gallagher doesn't fit the math or the timeline.
To be fair to him, he earned everything he got in Montreal. He played 911 games in a Habs uniform. That is not a small number. That is a career.
Michel Therrien, who coached him early on and was there Sunday night when Gallagher received the Sports Personality of the Year award in Montreal, believes he can still contribute somewhere.
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Maybe he can. The right team, the right role, the right minutes. It's not crazy. But someone has to want the contract first.
That is the unsettled part. His agent is now working the phones, and the market will decide pretty quickly whether Gallagher has a next chapter or whether a quiet buyout conversation starts gaining traction instead.
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YESTERDAY
JUNE 6, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Mitch Marner | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jordan Staal | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Shea Theodore | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Brayden McNabb | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Martinook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Karlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jaccob Slavin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Logan Stankoven | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||