{"id":569849,"date":"2026-03-30T02:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T02:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/569849\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T02:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T02:28:08","slug":"arber-xhekaj-had-plenty-to-say-about-his-unusual-new-role-with-the-canadiens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/569849\/","title":{"rendered":"Arber Xhekaj had plenty to say about his unusual new role with the Canadiens"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\t\t\t\t\t \"Photo <\/p>\n

Photo credit: Screenshot<\/p>\n

Against the Carolina Hurricanes, Martin St-Louis made an unusual decision by deploying Arber Xhekaj as a fourth-line forward due to injuries.<\/p>\n

The scenario many fans had hoped for finally came to life for Xhekaj and the Montreal Canadiens tonight.<\/p>\n

During the matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes, Xhekaj did indeed play on the team\u2019s fourth line.<\/p>\n

Priyanta Emrith quickly shared the physical defenseman\u2019s reaction to this highly unusual situation.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Marc Denis on RDS, Arber Xhekaj spoke very openly.<\/p>\n

The player admitted right away that it felt a bit strange to suddenly find himself playing forward.<\/p>\n

Arber Xhekaj embraces forward role with physical forecheck and added offensive freedom<\/p>\n

Despite the unusual transition, the towering player managed to take a lot of positives from his night.<\/p>\n

He mentioned on RDS that it felt good to loosen up his legs a bit.<\/p>\n

Playing forward especially allowed him to forecheck aggressively and deliver solid hits on opposing defensemen.<\/p>\n

He backed that up with five hits in just five minutes of ice time against Carolina.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully I can get on the forecheck, hit some guys and create some space for the other guys and park my big butt out front and maybe we can generate something.”<\/p>\n

– Arber Xhekaj<\/p>\n

Playing that position gives him a certain freedom to hit without having to worry about his responsibilities as a defenseman.<\/p>\n

This bold decision by head coach St-Louis proves he is not afraid to innovate to compensate for the current lack of healthy forwards.<\/p>\n

Now it remains to be seen whether this temporary position change will continue in the next game\u2014or even for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n

If Josh Anderson or Alexandre Texier are not able to return to the lineup soon, the experiment could be repeated.<\/p>\n

Previously on Montreal Hockey Fanatics<\/p>\n

POLL<\/p>\n

2 HOURS AGO|371 ANSWERS<\/p>\n

Arber Xhekaj had plenty to say about his unusual new role with the Canadiens<\/p>\n

Would you like to see Arber Xhekaj play as a fourth-line forward again in the future?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Photo credit: Screenshot Against the Carolina Hurricanes, Martin St-Louis made an unusual decision by deploying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[27038,49,48,748,15950,219210,10397,743,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-569849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-arber-xhekaj","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","12":"tag-forward","13":"tag-marc-denis","14":"tag-martin-st-louis","15":"tag-montreal-canadiens","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}