Gallagher: 'You feel like you failed'

TORONTO - The Canadiens were hoping to close out the 2017-18 campaign with their first win of the year over the Maple Leafs, but things just didn't work out that way.

Claude Julien's troops dropped a 4-2 decision to their Atlantic Division rivals on Saturday night at the Air Canada Centre, marking the end to a bitterly disappointing season.
There was no shortage of frustration in the Canadiens' locker room when the contest was finally over.
"It's a tough feeling when you're playing a team, especially them, and you see how excited they are to be playing in the playoffs," said Brendan Gallagher, in reference to the Maple Leafs' success all year long. "The season ended earlier than we would have liked. It's not a good feeling. You feel like you failed. You just never want to feel this again or go through this ever again."

With that in mind, according to Gallagher, the most important thing the Canadiens can do going forward is to remember that feeling and apply the many lessons learned over the course of the last six-plus months in the future.
"You have to remember it. It's a wasted season if you haven't learned lessons. If we don't learn from it, we're going to continue to make the same mistakes over and over again," explained the six-year NHL veteran, who finished the year with a team-leading 31 goals and 54 points in 82 games. "I think we just found ways to lose hockey games. Hopefully we can learn and get better, and when we do come out, hopefully on the winning side, it's that much more rewarding. It's definitely been tough playing these games that really had less meaning for us."
Like Gallagher, Jonathan Drouin wasn't at all pleased to see his first season in Montreal come to a premature end.
"As a team, we didn't manage to do what we wanted to do this year, and that's make the playoffs. That's the goal when you start out in September and we weren't able to. That has to change," insisted Drouin, who would have relished the opportunity to play postseason hockey in front of the Bell Centre faithful. "I saw what it was like there when I was still with Tampa. It would have been fun to play at home."

In short, Gallagher summed up missing the chance to compete for hockey's top prize this time around rather effectively.
"[The Maple Leafs] get the chance to do something we don't. That's why you play the 82 games. Nothing else really matters. There's nothing like playoff hockey," concluded Gallagher. "You can't simulate that, and for us not getting that opportunity, it obviously sucks. It's just not something you want to feel very often."