He started the series on a line with Andreas Martinsen and Steve Ott, a pair of forwards known more for their brawn then their skill and speed.
"Sometimes you make certain decisions internally that not everybody externally understands," Canadiens coach Claude Julien said. "I think he's had a great attitude. I've said that all along. He's worked hard. He's finding his swagger again."
That was the end result of the mind game Julien played with Galchenyuk at the end of the regular season.
Julien wanted Galchenyuk to buy into the Canadiens' system that features the forwards being aggressive but structured in the defensive zone to create turnovers, generate speed and transition opportunities.
He couched the decision to move Galchenyuk down to the fourth line as a way to get a bona fide scorer on all four of his lines to create balance, but it appears obvious now that Julien did it to get Galchenyuk's attention and to put less pressure on him.
Simply put, even though Julien admires Galchenyuk's skating and his skill as an offensive player, he didn't feel like he was good enough at the time to play a top-nine role for the Canadiens.
"Any player when they compete hard they're that much better," Julien said. "I don't care how much talent people have, when they compete hard that's where that talent shows off even more. I think it's his swagger, it's coming back. He's starting to feel good about himself. Sometimes you got through situations not everybody knows about and you kind of lose your swagger or you lose your confidence for all kinds of different reasons and you allow them to find that again. That's where we're at with him."
Galchenyuk responded to the demotion by scoring the overtime winner in Montreal's regular-season finale against the Detroit Red Wings on April 8. He had four shots on goal on 15 shifts in Game 1 against the Rangers. By the end of the first period in Game 2, when Montreal had a 2-1 lead, Julien had seen enough to move Galchenyuk up to the line with Lehkonen and Shaw.