One game is every game for Brendan Gallagher. It’s almost as if the Montreal Canadiens right winger skates in front of a green screen, performing the same actions over and over while the images change behind him. It doesn’t matter whether he’s playing in Boston, home of a blood rival, or in California on a once-a-year trip. Or if it’s in front of empty seats in Arizona or at home in the ever-humming Bell Centre. To No. 11, every sheet of ice is the same and the job he has to do doesn’t change. The offensive zone — for Gallagher’s purposes, anyway — really consists of the space from the top of the circles to the end boards. He caroms around that area like a tiny rubber ball whipped into a concrete shoebox. Back and forth, a perpetual commute from the boards to the front of the net, sliding into a shooting position in the high slot, then starting all over again. He tends to skate more hunched over than most, and by the end of a shift he’s often bent all the way over, gliding to the bench. Gallagher’s hustle, however, wears most deeply on others.

“He just works so hard that it drives you crazy,” says one-time teammate Josh Gorges. “Especially as a defenceman, you stand in front of the net, you try to box him out, you try to push him out of the way and he just doesn’t stop. You give him the hardest [cross-check] and he pops back up with a big smile on his face. You want to believe that you’re getting under his skin and you’re pushing him around, but nothing fazes him.”