The Montreal Canadiens have discovered what "In the Mix" truly means, making the playoffs for the first time since making the Stanley Cup Final in 2021. So far, the number one seed Washington Capitals have won the first two games, but have yet to face off against Arber Xhekaj.
The Canadiens took the Eastern Conference champs as far as they could go in Game 1, ultimately losing in overtime off the stick of the greatest goalscorer of all time, Alex Ovechkin. But for the youngest team to ever qualify for the playoffs, this was a fantastic start.
Game 2 came, and it was a similarly close game. Dvorak opened the scoring, but Washington scored twice in a minute in the second period and added an empty netter. But we might be looking at everything completely differently if Jake Evans had been able to hit that empty net.
All-in-all, the Montreal Canadiens have done extremely well, including outshooting the Capitals 14-5 in the third period of the second game.
Anyone should be proud and happy with what this team has accomplished with even just making the playoffs. But still, its hard to not want a better outcome for the first two games. And there has been adjustments. Laine was straight-up benched for the third period.
But one line-up change has been the talk of the town, even before the playoffs started. Fan favourite defender Arber Xhekaj has not played an NHL game since April 6th. And there have been a lot of vocal fans that have demanded his return to the line-up, especially since the Canadiens have struggled in the playoffs.
But Xhekaj has never been far from the spotlight during his time in the NHL, and its not hard to see why.
He went undrafted in the NHL, and was signed by the Canadiens while playing with the Kitchener Rangers and working at Costco in 2021.
And even back then, you could see the vision there. In the OHL, he was a general on the backend, playing a poised and extremely physical game. But as this interview from his time with Kitchener shows, he had a mind for the game and a drive to improve his game.
And improve he did, and he had a meteoric rise, making his NHL debut in 2022-23, and never looking back, besides a small stint in the AHL last year. He quickly gained a reputation of being a heavy hitter and a strong fighter.
In his rookie year, Xhekaj recorded 101 penalty minutes in 51 games, and fought some of the biggest names in fighting in the NHL. This season he managed to stay healthy and play a career high 70 games. He hasn't been fighting as much as he did as a rookie, but his physical presence has often been enough to keep opponents honest.
But that physical presence has been absent for most of this month. And its not like there are reasons to keep him out of the line-up, and reasons to put him in the line-up. But which one outweighs the others? It likely comes down to your opinion, but it doesn't hurt to go through the arguements.