MONTREAL — The last time the Montreal Canadiens played a playoff game in a full Bell Centre was April 20, 2017, Game 5 of a first-round series against the New York Rangers, the team the Canadiens are currently chasing for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Brendan Gallagher scored a goal in that game on the power play, taking a ridiculous feed from Andrei Markov in the slot and converting, blowing the roof off the building. The Canadiens had just given up a short-handed goal allowing the Rangers to tie the game, a goal that had just finished being announced when Gallagher buried that shot from the slot.
Gallagher was a few weeks shy of his 25th birthday at the time, or a bit younger than Nick Suzuki is right now. Gallagher is now a couple of months shy of his 33rd birthday, and after practice Friday, he was a bit stunned to learn that he is the only member of the Canadiens to play a playoff game in a full Bell Centre.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Gallagher said initially. “Jake (Evans) hasn’t? I feel like Jake’s been here forever.
“To be honest, I thought more guys had done it.”
And so, as the only guy in that room to have lived that experience, has Gallagher tried to tell his teammates what it’s like, how it feels, considering how badly the Canadiens are trying to create that environment this season?
“It’s exciting,” Gallagher said Friday. “It doesn’t feel like that long ago. The anticipation, the energy in the building, as a hockey player it’s one of the greatest feelings you can experience. I’d love for these guys to experience that.”
One night later, it came very, very close, about as close as it’s come for the home team since that night almost eight years ago, a game the Canadiens lost in overtime before losing the series in Game 6 two nights later.
Just before the eight-minute mark of the third period Saturday night, with the Canadiens clinging to a 2-1 lead against the Florida Panthers, the puck came out of the Panthers’ end to David Savard at centre ice. Savard did what the Canadiens did all game. He dumped the puck right back into the Panthers’ zone.
Sam Bennett collected the puck in his corner and wheeled around his own net to start the breakout, except he didn’t notice Gallagher — there he is again — lurking in the slot, and when Gallagher pounced on Bennett, he had to rush a clearing attempt. That attempt went straight to Savard at the blue line, and he immediately put the puck on net, where Christian Dvorak was waiting for it. His tip in the slot got past Sergei Bobrovsky, gave the Canadiens a 3-1 lead they would not relinquish, and was Dvorak’s 100th career NHL goal.
Dvo-100 😎#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/fDaTFXxCdK
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) March 16, 2025
That goal, as significant as it was for Dvorak and his teammates, triggered an atmosphere in the Bell Centre we have not seen in this building since that game eight years ago that Gallagher scored in, an atmosphere none of his teammates have experienced, an atmosphere he so desperately wants for them.
This was not that, to be clear. Playoff Bell Centre is a unique animal that is far superior to what we saw Saturday night. But for these players, aside from Gallagher, this was as close as they’ve ever come to that.
Not long after that Dvorak goal, the Bell Centre crowd began doing the wave, and there was a wave of noise in the building as well. The next television timeout came just under three minutes of game time after Dvorak’s goal, and that wave, and that noise, continued throughout the commercial break.
With nothing happening on the ice, that crowd gave these players — aside from Gallagher — a little taste of what they are chasing here.
Dvorak had never heard anything like it.
“No I have not,” Dvorak said. “That was pretty cool, even during the TV timeout. I think most of the guys were looking up and thinking that’s a pretty cool moment, that’s for sure. It was a lot of fun.”
Coming out of the break for the 4 Nations Face-Off, Suzuki mentioned watching the first Canada-USA game at Bell Centre, the incredible atmosphere in the building that was coming through his screen, and wondering what that would be like for his team in his building. Goaltender Sam Montembeault was in the building that night, sitting in the press box as Team Canada’s third goaltender, and took a video of the atmosphere and sent it to his fellow Québec-born, Francophone teammates Alexandre Carrier and Savard.
“I told them this is crazy,” Montembeault said, “I’ve never seen the Bell Centre like that.”
That third-period wave Saturday came close, he said.
“The Ole Oles we had for Canada before the game, we had them in the third, and that was special,” Montembeault said. “It was just a Saturday in March. I can only imagine what a playoff game would be like.”
The way that Dvorak goal came about is significant here. Because the Canadiens played that way all night, getting pucks deep and going after them, and they will need to continue playing that way the rest of the way if they want to recreate that feeling only Gallagher knows.
Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis almost never starts the Suzuki line with Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovský. It’s usually Evans’ line with Joel Armia and Emil Heineman because that is St. Louis’ go-to identity line, three players who can play a deep game, a forechecking game, and spend that first shift in the offensive zone to set a tone.
But on this night, it was Suzuki’s line that went out first, because St. Louis wanted them to face Aleksander Barkov’s line all night, and that’s what they did. Barkov was on the ice for 14:25 at five-on-five in the game, and Suzuki was on the ice for close to 12 minutes of that time.
On that opening shift, Caufield took a pass from Slafkovský in the neutral zone with tons of space in front of him. He had almost no opposition between him and the Panthers’ blue line. But he didn’t even consider carrying the puck in the offensive zone. He flipped it deep, and let Suzuki get in on the forecheck, and benefited a few seconds later after Suzuki secured possession and Slafkovský set him up for a quick chance in the slot.
This is how the Canadiens were going to play this game. They were going to play the way the Panthers play. And their best players were going to show the way.
“Tonight we played their game,” St. Louis said after the 3-1 win, “and we played it well.”
It was impossible not to notice who closed this game out for the Canadiens, and how symbolic it was.
After Dvorak was called for a late high-sticking penalty, St. Louis deployed Mike Matheson, Savard, Evans and Armia to kill it off with the Panthers pulling Bobrovsky to make it a six-on-four. St. Louis took a timeout with a little over a minute left on the Panthers’ power play so he could keep those four on the ice. And when the penalty ended, he had the comfort of knowing Dvorak would be exiting the penalty box to help defend the lead.
Dvorak, Savard, Armia and Evans were the Canadiens’ four impending free agents heading toward the trade deadline, and all four of them were on the ice to close this game out. Armia, Evans and Savard were on the ice for the final 3:33 of the game, Matheson for the final 4:01, and Dvorak for the final 1:33.
Suzuki lobbied general manager Kent Hughes before the 4 Nations break to keep these guys, to keep the group together, so that he and his teammates could experience the type of atmosphere he saw during that Canada-USA game, the type of atmosphere they had Saturday night, and there they were, all four of them, closing this game out.
“They’re key penalty kill guys for us,” Suzuki said. “If we got rid of all of them, I don’t know where our penalty kill would be. They’re really important for us to close out games, kill penalties.
“And that wins hockey games.”
And that’s all the Canadiens are about right now, winning hockey games.
The weather’s getting warmer in Montreal, playoff weather, a time of year this group is used to looking for external, irrelevant sources of motivation to play out the string.
They are not doing that this March. This is different. And the paying customers they play in front of every night gave them a reminder Saturday night what they are playing for.
They are playing for that feeling only Gallagher knows in that dressing room.
(Photo of Christian Dvorak celebrating his third-period goal with teammates: David Kirouac / Imagn Images)
