Huge Loss

I won't lie to you, folks: I'm a Brendan Gallagher fan. I love his gritty play where he's in the face of whatever defender has called him as his check. I love his heart as he goes to high-traffic areas and gets his hands dirty in looking for goals while paying the price. I love his speed, his checking, his tenacity. If there was a player I'd want to play with but not against, Gallagher would be the mold of that player. Clearly, the Montreal Canadiens and head coach Michel Therrien value him as well as he seems to be on the ice every second shift bringing his tenacious game to his opponents, but it might be a long time before we see him on the ice again.

Gallagher and the Canadiens were playing the New York Islanders last night, and things were going somewhat to plan midway through the second period when the game was tied 1-1. I'll let the video set this one up.

Gallagher blocked Johnny Boychuk's shot with his hand and was in immediate discomfort. It's well-known that Boychuk has a cannon of a shot, so you can imagine how that would feel to get a chunk of frozen, vulcanized rubber fired at you at close to 100mph.

Sacre bleu, check out that ring finger! Not good. At all. According to the Canadiens, Gallagher fractured two fingers on his left hand and is out indefinitely following surgery Monday. That's going to leave a big hole in this lineup as it's expected that Gallagher may be out six to eight weeks.

We'll see how the Canadiens react to this setback because Gallagher was having himself a career year before the injury. He was an integral part of the Canadiens' early success. And while there's no replacing a player of Gallagher's skill and tenacity entirely, the Canadiens will need someone to step up in his absence in a big way.

The only question is who will be that player?

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!