Brendan Gallagher of Edmonton, Alberta recorded his first career National Hockey League hat trick on Thursday. He accomplished the feat in a 5-1 Montreal Canadiens win over the Philadelphia Flyers at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec.
Gallagher scored his first goal of the game just 58 seconds into the first period to put the Canadiens up 1-0. Phillip Danault of Victoriaville, Quebec and Brett Kulak of Stony Plain, Alberta picked up the assists.
Gallagher then put the Canadiens up 3-0 with an unassisted marker at 10:33 of the first period and then recorded his hat trick at 2:56 of the second period from Andrew Shaw of Belleville, Ontario and Canadian Olympic gold medalist Shea Weber of Sicamous, British Columbia to put the Canadiens up 4-0. Weber won the gold medal for Canada at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi.
Three other Canadians on the Canadiens notched assists on the other two Montreal goals. Paul Byron of Ottawa, Ontario and Jordie Benn of Victoria, British Columbia recorded the assists on the first period game winning goal by Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Max Domi picked up the lone assist on the Canadiens 4-0 goal at 6:48 of the second period by Tomas Tatar.
During the 2018-19 NHL regular season, Gallagher now has 26 goals and 14 assists for 40 points. He is a +10 with 32 penalty minutes, six power play points, three game winning goals, 221 shots on goal, 15 faceoff wins, 23 blocked shots, a career high 95 hits, 38 takeaways and 24 giveaways. The Canadiens are currently in fourth place in the Atlantic Division with 73 points.
