Game Day Notebook: Canadiens’ Brendan Gallagher to Play 600th Game

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Brendan Gallagher will play the 600th game of his NHL career with the Canadiens on Thursday when the Pittsburgh Penguins are the visitors at the Bell Center. (7 pm, TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).

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Gallagher has experienced many ups and downs during his 10 seasons with the Canadiens. There was the high of reaching the Stanley Cup final for the first time in his career last season, followed by the low this season with the Canadiens starting 4-12-2 and ranking 29th in the NHL overall. . positions heading into Thursday night’s game.

“Sometimes the road is harder than other times and now it’s a harder road for us,” Gallagher said after Wednesday’s practice at Brossard. “We get into a deep hole and we are paying for it. But as soon as you lose that mindset, you start worrying about the results over the process, that’s when those bad habits start showing up again. We feel that we are building. Results are taking a while to come, but it’s important that we stay on that path and understand that you really have to have that short-term mindset and make sure we’re only focusing on the process on the journey that we go through. are you here.

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“It’s just a short-term mindset,” he added. “Regardless of what happened, you shouldn’t know the next day when you show up if you won or lost. It’s an entrepreneurial mindset and you have to work to figure out what you have to do to win the next game. For us, we are playing against a very good team here in Pittsburgh, so we prepare for them, we finally won a hockey game and I think we can turn around quickly. But you can’t win 10 games in one night. All you can control is a game, risk it all and find a way to score two points and go out there and regroup. “

Gallagher is 3-5-8 totals in 17 games this season, giving him 190-175-365 career totals. He ranks 28th on the Canadiens’ all-time goal list, one behind former captain Saku Koivu.

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Cayden Primeau will make his second consecutive start in goal for the Canadiens against the Penguins, while defender Mattias Norlinder will make his NHL debut after being selected by Montreal in the third round (64 overall) in the NHL Draft. 2019.

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Long time not see you

The Penguins will play the Canadiens for the first time since February 14, 2020 when they beat Montreal 4-1 in Pittsburgh, Jason Zucker scored twice in that game and Sidney Crosby had three assists.

In their last 11 games against the Canadiens, the Penguins have scored four or more goals seven times. The Penguins are 4-0-1 in their last five games at the Bell Center and 7-1-1 in their last nine.

Overall, the Penguins are 10-3-1 in their last 14 games against the Canadiens.

Crosby, who grew up as a Canadiens fan, has totals of 19-33-52 in 40 career games against Montreal. In his last three games against the Canadiens, Crosby is 1-7-8.

Crosby, who underwent offseason wrist surgery, has only played three games for the Penguins this season. He’s got an assist in those three games and he’s minus 6.

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“It’s definitely a challenge,” the Canadiens’ Nick Suzuki said Thursday morning of facing Crosby. “He is a different player than some of the other superstars in the league. It controls the disk very well. Such a smart player. He uses his line mates, he reaches the net, so you really have to box, know where he is at all times. Whoever is on the ice against him knows where he is. “

The Penguins are averaging 35.3 shots per game this season, the second-highest total in the NHL, behind only the Boston Bruins at 35.4.

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Boys from home

Penguins defender Kris Letang, a Montreal native, has 6-22-28 totals in 35 career games against the Canadiens, including 3-12-15 totals in 19 games at the Bell Center.

Among all active Quebec-born NHL players, Letang has the third-highest number of career points (591) behind Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins (930) and David Perron of the St. Louis Blues (620). Bergeron is from L’Ancienne-Lorette and Perron is from Sherbrooke.

Penguins defender Mike Matheson grew up in Pointe-Claire on the west island of Montreal. Matheson is 1-5-6 in 12 games this season.

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Honoring the newest inductee to the Hall of Fame

Kim St-Pierre, who won three Olympic gold medals as a goalkeeper for Team Canada and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto on Monday, will be honored at a pregame ceremony Thursday night at the Bell Center.

St-Pierre began her hockey career at age 8 as the only girl in Châteauguay’s junior hockey association, inspired by Canadiens goalkeeper Patrick Roy.

“I never tried to be the first to do this or to be the only girl” St-Pierre told Sportsnet’s Mike Schulman earlier this year . “No. For me, it was just about being so competitive. I wanted to play at the highest level I could.

“My dream when I was younger was to go to the Olympics,” added St-Pierre, who also played softball and soccer. “I said once on a local television station, ‘I want to go to the Olympics in all sports except hockey,’ because hockey was not for girls back then. So it’s funny that I was able to succeed in women’s hockey. “

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St-Pierre also won five IIHF Women’s World Championships with Team Canada and two Clarkson Cups with the Montreal Stars. He also played for the McGill University Martlets while completing a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology.

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Caufield’s Scores for Rocket

Cole Caufield scored the tying goal at 1:46 p.m. of the third period Wednesday night and added another in a shootout as the Laval Rocket rallied from a 5-1 deficit to beat the Marlies 6-5 in Toronto in AHL action. Caufield also had nine team-leading shots on target.

In six games with the Rocket since he was sent by the Canadiens, Caufield is 2-3-5 totals.

The Rocket, which improved to 7-6-1, will return to action Saturday night when it visits the Belleville Senators.

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How the Habs were built

Here’s a look at how the Canadiens’ current roster was built:

Selected players (9): Jake Evans, Brendan Gallagher, Artturi Lehkonen, Mattias Norlinder, Michael Pezzetta, Ryan Poehling, Carey Price *, Cayden Primeau, Alexander Romanov.

Free agents (9): Alex Belzile, Ben Chiarot, Mike Hoffman *, Sami Niku, Cedric Paquette *, Mathieu Perreault *, David Savard, Tyler Toffoli, Chris Wideman.

Trades (10): Jake Allen *, Josh Anderson, Joel Armia, Joel Edmundson *, Jonathan Drouin, Christian Dvorak, Brett Kulak, Jeff Petry, Nick Suzuki, Shea Weber *.

Exemptions (2): Paul Byron *, Samuel Montembeault.

* -injured player

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Whats Next?

The Canadiens have practice scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Friday at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard and will play the Nashville Predators on Saturday at the Bell Center (7 p.m., SNE, CITY, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) .

Next week, the Canadiens will hit the road for three games. The Washington Capitals will play on Wednesday (7 pm, SNE, SN1, SNO, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM), the Buffalo Sabers on Friday (7 pm, TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and the Penguins on Saturday (7 pm, CBC, SNE, SNO, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).

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