Martin St-Louis Makes His Call on Arber Xhekaj as Tonight’s Lineup vs. Kraken Is Revealed
Photo credit: David Kirouac-Imagn Images
We finally have a verdict regarding young Montreal Canadiens defenseman Arber Xhekaj.
Quietly, St-Louis benched Xhekaj for the entire third period!
In short, we have a verdict!
Martin St-Louis Confirms That Arber Xhekaj Will Play Tonight Against the Seattle Kraken
“Any lineup changes?”
“No!” – Martin St-Louis
In my humble opinion, both are excellent decisions.
Scratching Xhekaj in favor of Del Gaizo would have been unnecessary and very harmful to the young player’s confidence, and starting Montembeault again would have made little sense given Dobes’ incredible form.
St-Louis also added this about Arber Xhekaj only seeing 6:37 TOI last game:
“To Xhekaj’s defense, there are some really good defensemen in front of him right now… do we want to give him more [TOI]? Yes we do, I think he deserves more and we’re going to try to do that…”
“At the same time, Xhekaj’s gotta keep trying to stack shifts after shifts but we want to give him more.”
– via Priyanta Emrith
That pretty much sums up the current situation!
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Martin St-Louis Makes His Call on Arber Xhekaj as Tonight’s Lineup vs. Kraken Is Revealed
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