HabsWorld.net --
Brendan Gallagher’s time with the Canadiens has come to an end. The Habs have dealt the veteran to the Canucks in exchange for future considerations.
As part of the deal, Montreal will be retaining half of Gallagher’s contract. That means they will carry a $3.25 million dead cap charge for the upcoming season while this will use one of their three salary retention slots.
Still, this is a better outcome than what a buyout would have cost them. The 2026-27 cap charge for a buyout would have been just over $3.839 million plus adding $1.33 million on the books for 2027-28. Montreal’s likely preference would have been to clear the full contract but that would have required them parting with another asset to do so.
Gallagher was a fifth-round pick by the Habs back in 2010 and has vastly outperformed his 147th overall draft slot. The 34-year-old spent 14 seasons with Montreal, spanning 911 games (13th most in franchise history) where he had 246 goals and 241 assists along with 594 penalty minutes. His best year came back in 2017-18 when he had 31 goals and 23 assists, his first of two 30-goal campaigns.
But Gallagher’s role had been reduced significantly over the last couple of seasons as he was almost exclusively deployed in the bottom six. This past season was primarily spent on the fourth line, resulting in a big drop in production. In 77 games, he had just seven goals and 12 assists. Gallagher became a healthy scratch late in the season and was used quite sparingly in the playoffs, suiting up in just three games, all in the Tampa Bay series (where he scored in his first game back).
Given the lack of usage down the stretch, Gallagher revealed earlier this month that he had made it known that he’d like to be trade. Management told him they’d work with him to find a desired destination and Vancouver – where he has some family ties – made sense logically. The Canucks moved Nils Hoglander to Nashville earlier in the day, opening the roster spot for Gallagher. It’s certainly a quiet end to his time with the Habs as one of the team’s most popular players, but he should get a chance to play a bigger role with Vancouver next season, the final year of his contract.
With the trade, Montreal’s cap space for next season now sits at just over $14 million, per PuckPedia. A good chunk of that will need to be earmarked for their pending restricted free agents (headlined by Zach Bolduc, Kirby Dach, Joe Veleno, and Arber Xhekaj) but GM Kent Hughes now has a little more flexibility to work with to try to add to his roster for next season.
