Gallagher: 'Every single guy gave everything they had'

TAMPA - The Canadiens' season ended with a 1-0 loss to the Lightning in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final at AMALIE Arena.

After the game, forward Phillip Danault, forward Brendan Gallagher, defenseman Shea Weber and goaltender Carey Price spoke with reporters via Zoom.
They were followed by interim head coach Dominique Ducharme.
Here are a few highlights from their respective chats:
Danault on his emotions after coming up short:
I'm really proud of the team. We put in a lot of time and energy to find our game. That's what we did in the playoffs. It wasn't enough in the end. I'm really proud of the group. Everybody pushed in the same direction. We accomplished something big.

Danault on the top quality of the team this season:
We showed a lot of character. We never gave up. That best describes our group.
Gallagher on his message to his teammates:
Just thank you. Every single guy gave everything they had every single night through this run. You look at our group, obviously there are a lot more talented teams, a lot of teams that do a lot of things, but there's no team that is stronger as a group. The resiliency that we showed, it's just a good team to be a part of.
Gallagher on defying the odds to reach the Final:
We take nothing out of moral victories. At the start of the year, we sat down as a group and our goal was to be here. We expected to be here, regardless of what people thought of our team. The expectations were to win this series. I know we probably surprised a lot of people, but our expectations were to be the team celebrating right now. That's why it hurts so much, because we talked about how much we believed, and I wasn't lying. We believed in this group. It's just a tough pill to swallow.
Weber on taking pride in the Canadiens' accomplishments:
This group has a lot of character and went up against a lot of adversity this year. We proved a lot of people wrong, and in a tough year to boot where things weren't normal. Guys stuck together and battled hard. I wouldn't change it for anything. I'm super proud of these guys.

Weber on his message to his teammates after falling to the Lightning:
I think a lot of us are at a loss for words right now. To be honest, it's tough. Everybody knows that you play for this reason. You get so close, and you just can't get it. We're proud of everyone, but at the same time, I think we learned from this. Young guys and everybody take experience from it.
Price on a difficult defeat to process:
It's incredibly disappointing, but I'm only disappointed in the result. Our young guys did get a lot of experience, but it's hard to look ahead right now. We'll take some time off to lick our wounds and get back at it eventually.
Price on the outstanding collective effort of the group:
I'm just proud of them. It was an incredible run that we had. That's all there is to say.
Ducharme on his thoughts after the season-ending loss:
It's tough. We were so close, but at the same time, so far. We would've liked to finish this off another way. I'm proud of my players. We fought, we never gave up, and we showed a lot of character. We showed that we were a united group.

Ducharme on seeing his troops so overcome with emotion:
That's why we won't stop. For both the group and myself, it's out of the question that players like Gally, Webby and Pricey leave without getting their hands on that trophy. It's a long road. I think all of the guys deserve another chance. It's up to us to go after it. Nothing's guaranteed and it isn't easy, but we're going to work at it. We showed that we have a lot of resilience. We grew a lot as a group. Now, we're going to use this experience the right way. We don't want to finish with this feeling again.