Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

7

Brendan Gallagher

Montreal Canadiens Right Wing

21 goals at 33 on a 14.2 per cent rate, and a 52.1 per cent chance share nobody expected.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2012-13MTL44151328+103330311712.813:52
2013-14MTL81192241+4738002119.015:58
2014-15MTL82242347+18313062549.416:35
2015-16MTL53192140+132470017311.016:35
2016-17MTL64101929+7391021875.315:06
2017-18MTL82312354-133481427811.216:09
2018-19MTL82331952+104940430210.916:24
2019-20MTL59222143+9291012269.716:55
2020-21MTL3514923+101630210613.215:01
2021-22MTL5671724-7695001424.915:01
2022-23MTL378614-545002938.614:17
2023-24MTL77161531-247410215410.413:47
2024-25MTL82211738-63950114814.213:55
2025-26 so far
Career834239225464+2655549127239110.015:26

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

21 goals and 17 assists in 82 games for 38 points, minus-6, on 13:55 a night — his best season in five years.

52.1 per cent at five-on-five, the 71st percentile — tied for the best figure among the club’s forwards. 148 shots and 14.2 per cent conversion, with 43 per cent of his attempts from inside 20 feet.

The Finesse Game

Limited and pointed entirely at the crease. He does not carry the puck, does not create off the rush, and does not make a difficult pass; he arrives at the net front and is ready.

17 assists is a fair reflection. 21 goals from those locations at 33 is the season nobody thought he had left, and it is a location profile rather than a skill one.

The Physical Game

5-9 and 185, and among the most physically committed forwards of his generation. He takes cross-checks in the crease and stays, he forechecks with real force, and he has broken a great deal of himself doing it over thirteen seasons.

39 penalty minutes over 82 games. 82 games is the surprise — he had cleared 60 twice in five years before this.

The Intangibles

A fifth-round pick, thirteen seasons in one organisation, and a body that has been rebuilt more than once.

At 33 the projection is 15 goals and a decline that has been predicted for four years and keeps not arriving. He is the last player left from the club’s previous era.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 965 minutes

Expected goals
52.1%
72nd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.9%
41st pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 46 for, 45 against. Expected: 44.9 and 41.2.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
76th
Numbers
72nd

The two rank him within 4 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 77 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2024-25 · 965 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2024-25

The club
MTL took 48.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.1% — 3.5 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 965 minutes at five-on-five — 56th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Christian Dvorak52.9%50.6%37.7%
Josh Anderson50.9%54.5%45.3%
Lane Hutson53.4%51.2%51.6%

52.9% together, 50.6% for him apart and 37.7% for Dvorak apart. Dvorak was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Dvorak than for him.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

220 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 21 of them goals. His median goal came from 18 feet. 43% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 17% from beyond forty.