Brendan Gallagher’s Exit from Montreal Is Down to Two Options: Trade or Buyout

Brendan Gallagher has been a Canadien longer than anyone else on the roster. That streak is about to end, and the only question now is how.

TSN’s Darren Dreger reports that Montreal’s front office has been in active trade talks with the Vancouver Canucks about sending Gallagher to his hometown. Kent Hughes and Canucks GM Ryan Johnson are hashing out a potential deal, according to Dreger. But if they can’t find one that works for both sides, the Canadiens are prepared to just buy him out instead.

So What Would a Buyout Look Like?

Gallagher has one year left on the six-year deal he signed in 2020, with a $6.5 million cap hit. A buyout would free up about $2.67 million in space next season but leave Montreal with $1.33 million in dead cap in 2027-28. Not a huge number, but it’s real money on the books for a season that’s three years away.

Dreger made it sound like the Canadiens want to handle this with some class. Gallagher got emotional during his end-of-season press conference, and it sounds like the team knows this is hard on him.

“They want to and intend on doing right by Gallagher,” Dreger said on TSN. “We all saw his end of the season address with the media how emotional he was at the idea of he knew the reality is he’s leaving the Canadiens. He’s leaving the city of Montreal.”

Gallagher was born in Edmonton but played his junior hockey for the Vancouver Giants. He spent four seasons there before turning pro. A Vancouver homecoming makes sense on paper, but the Canucks have their own cap concerns. They’re not exactly swimming in space.

If the trade route falls through, Gallagher and his agent Jerry Johansson would get to test the open market as a buyout free agent. There’s a world where a team looking for a grizzly veteran presence on a short-term, lower-money deal takes a flier on him. But nobody’s guaranteeing that market will be hot.

Montreal is clearly moving toward a younger roster. Gallagher’s style — that relentless, crease-crashing, undersized scorer thing — has taken a toll on his body over the years. He turns 33 this spring and has seen his production slip. The numbers don’t lie.

The Canadiens are doing this the right way, as far as these things go. They’re trying to get him to a place he actually wants to be. But if Vancouver can’t make the cap work, they’ll pull the buyout trigger. Likely sooner rather than later, Dreger said.

Either way, Gallagher’s time in Montreal is done. It’s just a matter of where he lands next.