"I wanted to be better than I was last year, more consistent. If I'm being honest, I had more fun scoring 10 goals last year than I have this year," admitted Gallagher, who reached the milestone for the second time in his career after notching a career-high 24 in 2014-15. "It's been a bit of a frustrating season for the group."
The only thing that was frustrating for the Canadiens in this first and only visit by Nashville to Montreal this season was their inability to convert a slew of quality scoring opportunities, a result that can mostly be attributed to a stellar night at the office by Rinne.
"He's a really good player for them, he was making big saves," continued Gallagher, who was one of six Canadiens to record four shots on net (Logan Shaw, for his part, managed five). "We had a lot of prime chances to put on their goalie, and he stepped up. We tried to get it around the net and make it tough on him, but big players make big plays, and that's what he did."
Many of those quality chances came from a relative newcomer to the Montreal roster, a youngster by the name of Nikita Scherbak who proved on Saturday that he more than belonged on a line with Alex Galchenyuk and Jonathan Drouin.
"I feel more confident. That was the best game that I felt really confident in tracking Drou," described Scherbak, one of those aforementioned players to have registered four shots on the night. "We made some plays, we were moving around. It was probably my best game."