Brendan Gallagher Jersey Card

Brendan Gallagher is the Montréal Canadiens' heart and soul. Sure, he also happens to be their leading goal scorer - with a team-leading 22 tallies in 59 games in 2019-20 (tied with Tomas Tatar, who posted that total in 68 games), and the lone 30-goal scorer the previous two seasons, 5 more than Max Domi (and 8 more than Tatar) in 2018-19 and a whopping 11 more than Paul Byron in 2017-18 - but he's also the guy sho sparks the offense on listless nights by planting himself in the opposing goalie's crease no matter the adversary joining him there. He has even taken to replacing his displeasure at missed calls with a smirk or a laugh in the face of pain or even a brutal injury, or in the case of a broken jaw suffered at the hands of Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Matt Niskanen in the 2020 playoffs, yapping like his life depended on it: Then again, Gally is used to dealing with Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara, who has tried numerous times to sever his head by guillotining his throat: And yet, his penalty minute tally had gone downward as his point production has increased, as his PIM count was far superior to his point totals in three of his first five NHL seasons, while the complete opposite has been true for the past three.

With this in mind, Habs GM Marc Bergevin offered the diminutive winger a six-year contract extension that nearly doubles his cap hit this off-season, prompting the reflection as to whether the best asset management was signig him from ages 29 through 35 as a first-line winger when the wear-and-tear will start showing more and more on his small frame rather than banking on his current status as a producer and leader on a playoff bubble team to add premium talent elsewhere in the lineup or prospects and high draft picks in a trade to a contender where he would play in the middle six.

I'm in the camp that would rather see him retire with the team he was drafted by, but the contract cements my thinking that he should have been wearing the "C" on his chest two captains ago, earning it ahead of Max Pacioretty and thus negating the need to hand it over to Shea Weber afterwards. You hear a lot about the Canadiens being Carey Price's team, or Weber's, but the truth of the matter is Price has been a middling goaltender for the past four seasons, which has pretty much corresponded with Weber's presence as the top guy on D, a job he has kind of lost to Jeff Petry for the past two seasons.

For all those reasons and because he's the team's sparkplug, its default sniper and its chief grinder, and because when he falls to injury the team drops in the standings like a 1980s Mike Tyson opponent, the Habs are Gallagher's team. So goes #11, so goes Montréal.

It's fitting that Upper Deck chose this photo for card #GJ-BG in their 2016-17 Series 1 collection and UD Game Jersey subset:

It shows him wearing the team's classic bleu-blanc-rouge (now-home) uniform, but the team's logo is hidden by his position, and instead his Warrior gloves are front and center. The fact that this card contains a white game-worn jersey swatch just further leads the eye to the center of the card to push the message further forward.

Brendan Gallagher Jersey Card

It's been roughly a year and a half since I last featured Montréal Canadiens pest, leader and sparkplug Brendan Gallagher; he's since been given an ''A'' as an alternate captain, and earlier tonight scored his first goal of the season - a game-tying tally against the Detroit Red Wings - becoming the tenth Habs forward to score this season.

A three-time 40-goal man in Juniors, Gallagher still stands as the Vancouver Giants' all-time goals (136) and points (280) leader; keep in mind, that puts him ahead of the likes of Milan Lucic, Gilbert Brûlé, Cody Franson, Lance Bouma, Evander Kane, and Jordan Martinook.

At the NHL level, he cracked the 20-goal mark last season, finishing with 24, and now has a goal and 4 assists (5 points) in 6 games so far this year, playing on the Habs' newly-formed top line with fellow alternate Tomas Plekanec and new captain Max Pacioretty.

For most of his first three seasons, he'd played alongside Alex Galchenyuk (now converted into a center), with centers ranging from Plekanec to Jan Bulis Lars Eller to Torrey Mitchell to whoever was available and needed a bit of a youthful boost.

To have an idea as to how consistent and surly he's been, former star winger and current team ambassador Guy Lafleur has been pushing him as captain for the last couple of years now.

I think he's the kind of player that ultimately becomes replaceable over time, as a combination of his body wearing down, teams looking for the type of leadership he brings, and an equally hungry and determined youngster coming up in the minors create a marketable value that is hard to ignore.

In the meantime though, me and my fellow Habs fans will continue to encourage him and cheer for him every chance we get. The way he always puts in maximum effort and goes all-out is reminiscent of all the players we're used to cheering, from legends as Maurice ''The Rocket'' Richard and Patrick Roy to stars like Saku Koivu to grinders like Chris Nilan, Francis Bouillon, Steve Bégin, and Bob Gainey.

Here he is in the team's white (now-away) uniform, from Upper Deck's 2013-14 Black Diamond set (in card #ROOK-BG from the Double Diamond Jerseys sub-set):

Because it is also his rookie jersey card, the two matching white jersey swatches incorporated into the card are from a photo shoot, not an official NHL game.

Brendan Gallagher Autographed Unused (Cancelled) Game Ticket

I touched upon a subject last Thursday that I thought I should provide closure on, and I figured showcasing this gem of an item might do so, if only to not have that paragraph seem gratuitous. And because I think it's good to get personal on blogs sometimes. I write about how I admire certain people, certain teams, how I know a few players or musicians or comedians personally, how (and where) I meet others; I had opened up about just about everything that was relatively superficial to anyone on the outside, and I thought it'd be cool to delve a bit into something more tangible, albeit - in this case - ultimately unsuccessful.

I was spending a lot of time with a lady lately, both in person and in my head. Among other things, we attended two Montréal Canadiens games together this year. It didn't pan out, and she thought it best if we remained on friendly terms, because we did get along in many respects; I'm still trying to figure out where she would (have) fit in the grand scheme of my life, but I'm kind of realizing it probably would not (and will not) work in the medium-to-long term, because while our tastes are similar, our characters just aren't. It happens, and you can't become friends with everyone you meet.

Where it gets interesting for this blog - rather than my ''more personal'' one - is our common love for hockey in general, and the Habs in particular; her favourite player is Brendan Gallagher, so I thought I could try a couple of things for her. The first thing I did was write him for a TTM request with some custom cards, which I did in the first half of March - there hasn't been a reply yet.

Then, I used one of my contacts to have this specific piece signed:

It is a ticket from a cancelled pre-season game between the Canadiens and the New Jersey Devils from the locked-out 2012-13 season - in other words, an official team ticket from a game that never happened. Back then, Gallagher wore #73, but when Michael Ryder came back with the team, he gave it up and switched to 11.

I had purchased the unsigned ticket off Ebay (from a seller I knew) and given it to someone in the Habs' organization to have it autographed.

This item should have been sent to her, but instead was sent back to me, and I received it on Thursday. I'm still planning on giving it to her in the future, but it'd be too awkward to do it now, I just need to let the moment pass. All things come in due time.

There is good reason to like Gallagher. He has always proved naysayers wrong, from the WHL's Vancouver Giants merely selecting him in the 9th round to all NHL teams passing on him 5 times in 2010 (he was drafted 147th overall by the Habs) after proving his character by scoring 81 points as a Junior, which he followed with a 91-point season. In his final year in Juniors, he helped Team Canada to a bronze medal at the World Juniors, scored 7 points in his first game back with the Giants, assumed team captaincy and registered 41 goals and 77 points in just 54 games. He finished his WHL career as the Giants' all-time leader in goals and points, ahead of Adam Courchaine and Evander Kane.

He only spent half a season in the AHL, playing 36 games with the Hamilton Bulldogs (10 goals, 10 assists, 20 points and 61 penalty minutes) during the NHL lock-out, graduating to the Habs as soon as NHL play resumed - and finishing among the Calder trophy finalists in the process.

Through a year and a half of NHL play, it has become clear that he may not have a shot that makes him a consistent 30-plus goal scorer, but he has the drive and determination to will himself to score between 20 and 30 regularly and once or twice probably flirt with 35, mostly off rebounds. Every single goalie in the league knows exactly what he smells like from his being in their face and in their crease all the time; he is probably a league leader in receiving cross-checks in the back. And the more he gets under his opponents' skin, the happier he gets.

We'll love him as long as he stays in town, but he's the type of player that gets a ridiculous contract offer (double or triple that of others in his statistics range) from another team the minute he hits free agency, and is given a letter to wear on his chest immediately, à la Brian Gionta, Martin Lapointe, and Chris Drury, just because the example he provides for his teammates is worth what he can't make up for in raw talent.

In the meantime, he's the sparkplug on the right wing that head coach Michel Therrien uses to wake a sleeping line up... and it works every time.