The real reason Patrik Laine and Brendan Gallagher missed the Canadiens’ viral Cole Caufield photo
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The Montreal Canadiens’ team photo in the locker room celebrating Cole Caufield’s 50th goal quickly went viral online.
Fans had fun spotting the small, humorous details in the image (like goaltender Jakub Dobes making a “05” with his hands instead of “50,” or Ivan Demidov and Oliver Kapanen combining their fingers to form the magic number), but one burning question quickly emerged.
Where were veterans Patrik Laine and Brendan Gallagher?
It was indeed the excellent Maxime Truman who first pointed it out.
Their obvious absence from this historic photo quickly fueled speculation.
The real reason why Brendan Gallagher and Patrik Laine are missing from the team photo
Fortunately, TVA Sports journalist Anthony Martineau quickly shut down the speculation by revealing exactly what happened behind the scenes in the locker room.
“I see several people wondering about the absence of Brendan Gallagher and Patrick Laine from the photo in the locker room highlighting Cole Caufield’s 50th goal.
What I saw was that Gallagher and Laine had left the locker room before we entered it to speak with the players. So, they were in the locker room after the game to celebrate their teammates’ victory, but probably left without knowing that a photo like that was going to be taken.” Martineau explained in a post on X.
There is therefore absolutely no story here.
The two forwards simply decided to leave the room a bit earlier to go about their post-game routines, completely unaware that an impromptu photo session was being organized to capture the magical night of number 13.
To fully reassure fans, the journalist made it clear regarding the team spirit of the two absent players:
“I think we can assert without a shadow of a doubt that both of them truly care about the team’s successes and would absolutely have agreed to be in the photo if they’d known one was being taken.
I just wanted to clarify.” – Martineau
Case closed! There is no controversy on the horizon.
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The real reason Patrik Laine and Brendan Gallagher missed the Canadiens’ viral Cole Caufield photo
Did you ever think for a moment that there was controversy behind Laine and Gallagher’s absence from the photo?