Arber Xhekaj in Laval: no power play for now

Arber Xhekaj has been traded to the Laval Rocket by the Canadiens. He’s not there for conditioning purposes or anything like that: he’s there to become more complete.

It’s up to him to stand up and become one.

He lost his place in Montreal with his injury. A guy like Jayden Struble took his place, and he’s in a chair that doesn’t have two seats, if you know what I mean.

A fullback like Gustav Lindstrom has also made his niche in the city.

Add to this the injuries (David Savard, Jordan Harris… and Chris Wideman, at worst) and the guys who have stepped up (Justin Barron and Jayden Struble, in particular) and we have the portrait of a blue line that has changed en masse in the last two months.

And the loser is Xhekaj. His defensive game is the cause, according to the CH.

Clearly, the organization wants to go to great lengths to ensure that its defenseman is able to work on his defensive game – and only his defensive game.

As Anthony Marcotte reports, WiFi won’t be getting a taste of the power play tonight… or anytime soon. No timetable is in place, but right now, he’ll be playing defensively.

The player said yesterday that he doesn ‘t want to denature himself and will continue to play physical. But he’ll have to do it by being more responsible in his zone, quite simply.

I hope he doesn’t have to fight just to fight.

Note that in order to ensure that the Sheriff is focused on the task in hand, he won’t be placed in a position where he’ll be playing with one of the club’s biggest defenders.

Tonight, he’ll be playing with… Brady Keeper.

Looking at the lineup from the December 2 game, we see that Tobie Paquette-Bisson and Logan Mailloux were playing together on the first pairing. William Trudeau and Olivier Galipeau made up the top-4.

Nicolas Beaudin and Brady Keeper played on the third pair… and Xhekaj will replace Beaudin.

Extension

– Strauss Mann will be in net tonight.

– No, WiFi won’t be playing forward, according to Eric Engels.

– What do you think?

– Well done.