Canadiens’ Gallagher and Carr pumped to play hometown Oilers

MONTREAL — Brendan Gallagher and Daniel Carr played hockey with and against each other as youngsters in Edmonton. Now teammates with the Montreal Canadiens, they are excited to get a reminder of those early days when the when the Oilers visit the Bell Centre tonight. “It’s cool, but it’s a little more special playing in Edmonton,” Gallagher said on Friday. “Especially when it was Rexall Place because that’s what I remember as a kid, going to games and sitting at Rexall.

“Last year playing in the new rink (Rogers Place) was cool. But I have so many family and friends that are still Oilers fans and they always act like they’re cheering for us, but they want it to go into overtime and for us to win. So they can’t fully cheer for us. But it’s always fun when we play Edmonton. You want to play well.”

Gallagher has been playing more than well this season.

The pesky right-winger who spends his off-seasons in Kelowna leads the Canadiens with 13 goals and 19 points after 30 games — a big rebound from a disappointing 10 goals and 29 points in 64 games as he battled a hand injury last season. Gallagher is on pace to better his career-best 2014-15 campaign of 24 goals and 47 points.

Carr, who has never faced the Oilers, has been on fire since he was called up from Laval of the AHL last week — with two goals and six points in four games. The Canadiens got almost no production at all from their fourth line until putting together a unit of recent call-ups in Carr, Nicolas Deslauriers and Byron Froese.

Gallagher and Carr thrive on winning puck battles and getting it to the net.

But their careers took decidedly different paths once they departed Edmonton as 12-year-olds, when Gallagher’s family moved to Vancouver and Carr went off to a hockey academy in Kelowna.

Before then, Gallagher said his teams thumped Carr’s regularly.

“I’m not even kidding — I don’t think they ever beat us,” he said.

“Not a chance — he’s got a bad memory,” replied Carr.

Gallagher was drafted by Montreal in the fifth round from the WHL’s Vancouver Giants. He spent half of one season in the AHL, when the NHL was in a lockout in 2012-13, before joining the Canadiens to stay. In 2015, he signed a six-year contract worth US$3.75 million per season.

Carr spent four seasons at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., before signing as an undrafted free agent with Montreal in 2014.

He has spent most of his time in the AHL since then, although he had six goals and nine points in 23 NHL games in 2015-16 and added a pair of goals and nine points in 33 games last season. He is on the second year of a two-year deal worth $750,000 per season and can become an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Carr has been piling up points since the start of the current campaign, however. He had 19 points in 20 games in Laval before his call up and has had at least a point in each NHL game.

In a 3-2 overtime loss to Calgary on Thursday night, Carr showed his skill with a clever backhand in off goalie David Rittich from the side of the net.

“He was always good,” said Gallagher. “He’s the same player.”