Gallagher: 'We've never lost belief'

WINNIPEG - The Canadiens have four big games left to lock up a playoff berth, but their focus is squarely on Saturday night's tilt against the Jets.

Simply put, looking past a team with that type of firepower up and down their roster would be a serious mistake. And Claude Julien's contingent knows it heading into the critical contest at Bell MTS Place.
"You can't look too far ahead. You can't win four games in one night. You can only win one," said assistant captain Brendan Gallagher, following Friday afternoon's practice session in the provincial capital. "Show up, put in a good effort, and then hopefully get the result we need. Then, we move on and do it all over again."

Fortunately, the mood in the locker room remains positive. No doubt the loss in Columbus on Thursday night was a tough one to swallow, but the Canadiens didn't have any time to dwell on it.
"You learn from it. It's part of the business. Everything's not always going to go your way. Dealing with adversity is part of the job," said Gallagher. "Obviously, it was a game that we put a lot of emphasis on. We would have liked to have it, but we didn't win. We can't fix that now. We have four games here to get the job done, and if we take care of business here, we've got to believe that we'll give ourselves a shot."

"Believe" is the key word there. Having defied all of the pre-season prognostications to date, this group isn't about to lose faith while they're still very much in the thick of things in the playoff hunt.
After all, they're tied with the Blue Jackets for the final wild card spot in the East with 90 points and sit only one point back of the Carolina Hurricanes for the top wild card position, so anything really is possible going forward.
Both Carolina and Columbus have one game in hand, though.
"We've never lost belief," stressed Gallagher. "We're capable of beating anyone if we show up and play and work as a team. That's all we have to do. You can't really look at the end goal. For us, we've just got to win a game in Winnipeg and things can change pretty quickly."
For his part, Max Domi believes circumstances like these will serve as additional motivation to go all-out versus Paul Maurice's squad.
"It brings out the best in our hockey club. We're excited about the opportunity," mentioned Domi. "It's going to be a challenge and we're going to rise to the occasion."

Julien is convinced that his players will do just that. They've proven all year long that they boast the mental toughness to bounce back from tough defeats.
"We've faced situations like these before and we've always rebounded well. The morale in the room is still good because we still control our destiny to a certain point," said Julien. "It's more a question of controlling your emotions and your thoughts. If we stay positive, we have a chance. If we're negative, we're done. We have to believe in our abilities, like we have all season."