Arber Xhekaj sends a warning to the entire NHL on Saturday.
The enforcer for the Montreal Canadiens is putting the entire league on notice this season.
Arber Xhekaj, the enforcer for the Montreal Canadiens, has just sent a message across the entire National Hockey League, a message that can only be interpreted as a warning to the rest of the league.
Following the final preseason game for the Canadiens on Saturday night, Xhekaj spoke to the media and made it clear that there will be consequences for anyone that attempts to transgress against his team this season.
"We're not gonna get pushed around this year," said Xhekaj in his post game comments.
Xhekaj would go on to explain that he feels the makeup of the Canadiens as they currently stand will require the team, as a collective unit, to work towards protecting some of the more undersized and highly skilled players in the lineup.
"We've got a younger team, we have a couple small skilled players and we've got each others back," said Xhekaj. "We've got a really tight bond in the room and if you mess with one you mess with [us] all."
Xhekaj has certainly been living up to that standard so far in the preseason, making headlines several times for his willingness to engage physically with his opponents.
His most notable moment of the preseason was a vicious beatdown of Toronto Maple Leafs forward Cedric Pare, the man who injured Canadiens forward Patrik Laine, but that was hardly his only moment. Xhekaj put much maligned Ottawa Senators forward Nick Cousins in his place on Saturday night and that was after he had already dropped the gloves with Ottawa's Zack MacEwen early in the game.
The Canadiens are obviously still reeling from the injury ot star forward Patrik Laine and that injury may very well have set the tone for how this team will be approaching the rest of the season. Based on his comments tonight, I expect Xhekaj himself will be setting that tone on many nights for the Canadiens moving forward.
Their first game of the regular season will be this coming Wednesday when they welcome the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Bell Centre on Montreal. Given that the Maple Leafs were the team that injured the aforementioned Patrik Laine, it will be a can't-miss type of game for fans of both those franchises.
