A testament to the team's depth, no forward cracked the 20-minute mark in ice time on Thursday, and no one in the lineup saw less than double-digit minutes in their night's work. Scoring two goals in his 14:50 of ice time, Gallagher made the most of his 21 shifts on Thursday night. While his workload was a little lighter than he's used to, he sees that as a positive sign - and a potential recipe for success.
"We're a team that relies on playing four-line hockey because we're trying to use our speed and we need to be fresh," mentioned Gallagher, referencing the strong play of Torrey Mitchell and Paul Byron, among others. "All four lines contributed. We were pressing. It started with a big shift from Davey's [David Desharnais] line to start it off and then Pleky's [Tomas Plekanec] line followed, and then Mitchy's line went out and did a great job. Four lines were rolling and I was the benefactor of it. As a group, shift after shift, we did a good job and eventually they cracked."
Despite managing to light the lamp a collective four times in Buffalo, the Habs aren't getting ahead of themselves after picking up a "W" in Game 1. Using the lessons learned last season as a cautionary tale, they're instead looking at Thursday's victory as a building block and a blueprint for the way they want to play for the remaining 81.
"It's definitely nice to get a win, but one of the things we learned last year is it's only a start," warned Gallagher, referencing the Canadiens' 9-0-0 start to the 2015-16 season that ended with the Habs finishing the year near the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings. "Game by game, you have to have the same focus. There are definitely areas to improve. Obviously there were spurts in the second period where we didn't play very good hockey and we relied on big Al [Montoya] back there to bail us out and he certainly did a good job. There are areas to improve, but we're happy with how the team looked."
"Big Al's" biggest save of the night may have been his stop on a shorthanded Evander Kane breakaway attempt in the first period to help maintain a 1-0 lead.