“I’m a pretty bitter guy. I refuse to watch. That’s where I want to be and I know how special it is. I guess you can say I am a jealous hockey fan.”
That’s what Canadiens’ winger Brendan Gallagher had to say as a guest on TSN 690’s ‘Melnick in the Afternoon’ on April 9th. He was asked how closely he would follow the NHL playoffs, considering his Habs came up just short in their effort to make the post season. Knowing that he is one of the game’s fiercest competitors, those words really didn’t come as a surprise.
Checking in with Gallagher a few weeks later, his stance had softened. But not by much.
“I guess I have been following it, even though I’m trying not to”, said Gallagher, a few days before his 27th birthday. “It’s so hard not to. Everyone you talk to, it’s all they talk about. I watch for about a period at time and then I have to go do something else. It’s hard to watch a full game but I’m pretty up to date with what’s been going on.”
I was able to reach the Canadiens’ veteran just as he finished a workout in Tsawwassen, B.C., supervised by his father Ian, a long time conditioning coach. Gallagher took two weeks off from training at the end of the season before getting back at it.
“We’re so used to being on a schedule and doing stuff that it’s just as easy to get back and start preparing for next year,” he says. As a player who takes as much abuse as anyone in the league, it’s a tribute to his conditioning that he’s able to shake off a season’s worth of bumps and bruises fairly quickly. “Those couple of weeks is really all you need. It’s like a bye week; you come back feeling refreshed. Your body gets pretty accustomed to the lifestyle and the way we play. You get pretty good at feeling good again and you’re ready to start training after a week or two off.”
Gallagher, who’s training alongside fellow pros Troy Stetcher, Derek Grant and a few others, understands the ins and outs of an off-season training regimen as one might expect the son of a conditioning coach would. “You go through different phases during the summer. It’s been awhile since I’ve done a real workout because during the year you’re just kind of maintaining. In the summer, you’re reconditioning the body so it’s a lot of conditioning. When it comes to cardio, you’re doing some bike rides and some runs and when you start again with weights it’s about higher-rep sets. Then you move into your strength and power phase. At the end of summer before you take off for camp you’re into the speed and agility phase. You start moving your body and turning all of that into being an athlete again. Midway through the summer is a big power phase when you go down in reps. In the last month or so you work your way back up into higher reps and working on speed and quickness and getting that back.”
When it comes to this year’s surprising playoffs, Gallagher might not be watching too closely but he certainly had his finger on the pulse of what’s been going on. He say there is something to Montreal general manager Marc Bergevin’s stated belief that anything can happen when you make to the post-season. “When you get in, it’s all about winning your match ups, “ says Gallagher. “Look at the teams that did what we did down the stretch but they were able to get in. You don’t want to play those teams because they’ve been playing playoff-type games for so long that when they get into the playoffs they have almost a relaxed feeling. The teams that were playing important hockey down the stretch are more used to high-adversity hockey and I think that’s what we’ve seen.”
Gallagher says it’s probably to the point where there’s more parity in the NHL than at any other time in his career. “There’s always been the idea that the lower seeds can beat the higher seeds but I don’t think we’ve ever seen it happen as much as we have in this playoff. You look at all the division winners and they’re out. It’s always so close. The first round of the playoffs is by far the most physical round that I’ve played in. Everybody’s hitting everything they can and then a few injuries will set in.. You find little things throughout the series you can take advantage of and that makes all the difference. It’s the beauty of our sport more than any other sport where you’re able to really able to, without being too cliché, dig deep and will yourself through a series more than just relying on skill. For one thing, the officiating is going to be different in the playoffs. There’s fewer power plays and it’s more of a physical game. If you don’t have the will and the character to go along with your skill, then you don’t have a chance of winning in the playoffs. I think in some other sports, you can rely on skill to carry you through; that’s just not the case in hockey.” Interesting insight from a man whose will is as strong as that of anyone you’ll meet.
When asked about the success of the Columbus Blue Jackets, a team the Canadiens battled for a playoff berth, Gallagher wasn’t surprised. “They clicked as a team probably the last ten games of the year. They were beating some pretty good teams and you could tell they were playing with a lot of confidence. They had that comeback in game one against Tampa Bay and I think that hurt Tampa more than it helped Columbus. Tampa had a season where they didn’t have to deal with much adversity and as soon as they were hit with it…it’s different for a team and you don’t know how they are going to take it. They would be the first to tell you they probably would like to have handled things differently. There’s a lot of pressure on a team when you lose game one at home then you lose game two and you’re chasing. Columbus was playing with confidence and you see it across the league: once a team gets momentum they can be pretty hard to stop.”
While a large part of Gallagher’s disappointment with missing the post-season for the second straight year is personal, he’s frustrated some of the younger Habs have yet to play deep into the spring. “We have a lot of new players that haven’t had the opportunity to play playoff games in Montreal”, he says. “It’s pretty special. It’s hard to explain. That’s one of the things that I’m most upset about that a few of my new teammates didn’t get to experience that. It’s so special as a hockey player to play in front of those fans at playoff time because the atmosphere is unlike anything else. Down the stretch it was certainly trending that way and the new guys loved playing in front of the fans. You kept saying ‘just wait, just wait, all we have to do is get in and you’ll really get to experience something.’ Hopefully next year we will all get to experience that. Being out (of the playoffs) two years in a row…it’s tough sitting at home and watching everyone else fight for your dream.”
It seems hard to believe but Brendan Gallagher is the second-longest tenured Montreal Canadien, trailing only Carey Price. With that experience comes leadership. Anyone who watches #11 play even one shift realizes he leads by example but that aspect of his game has expanded in other areas as well. “I think every year that I’ve been in Montreal I’ve had to take on more of that leadership role,” he says. “I was really fortunate early in my career to be around some really good, positive leaders that showed me what it was all about. Me being a player that is going into my eighth year with the team, I’ve experienced some things where I can help guys when they ask for help. I’ve never really looked at myself as a player who’s going to go out of my way to help other players. I think a lot of players are gifted with a lot more skill and talent than I have but I think there are some areas where just from experience I can help guys if they have any questions. I’ve seen different systems I’ve played against and off the ice, just simply playing in the Montreal market for so long that I’ve been able to grow up and understand the city. I’m trying to do the best I can to help guys but at the same time you have to let these young guys play and do their own thing. They’re all pretty talented.”
