{"id":628360,"date":"2026-04-25T19:54:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/628360\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T19:54:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:54:44","slug":"how-canadiens-arber-xhekaj-learned-to-see-things-clearly-through-the-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/628360\/","title":{"rendered":"How Canadiens’ Arber Xhekaj learned to ‘see things clearly through the chaos’"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 Arber Xhekaj<\/a>\u2019s play through three games of this series is proof positive that even just a little bit of experience goes a long way.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old defenceman had none in the playoffs when the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> stepped on the ice for their first game against the Washington Capitals at the Bell Centre last spring. Without going through that \u2014 and everything that comes with it \u2014 there\u2019s no way of telling whether he\u2019d have been able to deliver the kind of performance he had in the first game in the building against the Tampa Bay Lightning this spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a kid, I was watching Montreal play in the playoffs, and last year, when I played my first game, I felt like a fan almost at first,\u201d Xhekaj said on Friday morning. \u201cI was looking at a kid beside me, he was tearing up, and I almost started tearing up. Had so much adrenaline, and I was just like, \u2018I\u2019ve gotta play. I\u2019ve gotta go out there. What am I doing?\u2019 Had to slap myself out of it pretty quick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Easier said than done while Coldplay\u2019s \u201cFix You\u201d is being drowned out by more than 21,000 fans, turning hockey\u2019s greatest cathedral into a madhouse.<\/p>\n

As Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis put it, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be able to see things clearly through the chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Xhekaj, they were often blurred even during the regular season \u2014 by the noise all around him, by the uncertainty of his place in Montreal\u2019s lineup, and by his sporadic usage in games.<\/p>\n

He was scratched from 17 of them this season, and he was given less than 11 minutes of ice time in 31 of the 65 he played.<\/p>\n

But that experience also served Xhekaj well, because it taught him how to make the most of the least.<\/p>\n

Xhekaj has skated less than 11 minutes in each of the three games of this series, and yet he has played the best hockey of his career.<\/p>\n

With him and partner Jayden Struble on the ice, the Canadiens have owned 76 per cent of the shot-attempt share and 85 per cent of expected goals at five-on-five, and it\u2019s no secret as to why.<\/p>\n

As Xhekaj said after notching an assist, five shot attempts and eight hits in just 10:40 of Friday\u2019s Game 3 win, last year\u2019s experience taught him how to tune out distraction and stay engaged.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven sometimes when there\u2019s lots of power play or penalty kill and we\u2019re just sitting there,\u201d said Xhekaj, \u201cwe always make sure just to tell ourselves, \u2018Simple, hard, let\u2019s get our feet wet and get back in it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Tough love from St. Louis has paid off<\/p>\n

The coach has always known what buttons to press with Xhekaj, even if outside perception was that he\u2019d been holding the player to an unreasonable standard.<\/p>\n

As St. Louis said on Saturday, he\u2019s always been able to be real with Xhekaj because of who Xhekaj has proven to be as a person.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to break a person who\u2019s built themselves up,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cI think this generation likes to have everything easy, but I\u2019m happy with how he\u2019s built himself up. Even before I came to the Canadiens, I learned how he got there. Then we started working with him. I\u2019m proud of who Jacko (Xhekaj) is today. It\u2019s never been linear, but he\u2019s not someone who wants everything for free. He\u2019s built himself up. It\u2019s not the norm of today\u2019s generation that wants everything easy, so it’s hard to break a person that\u2019s built themselves up that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking about a hulking six-foot-four, 240-pound defenceman who emerged unbruised by the hard knocks of being passed over in the OHL Draft before being ignored in the NHL Draft; the son of immigrants from war-torn nations who moved to Canada and made it the hard way, providing the best possible examples for their kids to embrace challenges.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Xhekaj has done.<\/p>\n

St. Louis understanding him, and always leveling with him, has helped him do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always have conversations,\u201d the coach said. \u201cThe player can always use an excuse and say \u2018If I play more, I\u2019ll play better,\u2019 but the coach will say, \u2018Play better, you\u2019ll play more.\u2019 You have to be realistic and fair, and I think we work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJacko also knows that when he came into the league, we weren\u2019t deep,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cWe had five rookies on defence, so for sure there were minutes there for him. And that\u2019s fine because we were able to give him mileage early, give him experience he couldn\u2019t buy. We didn\u2019t have to worry about matchups and this and that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then you advance to where we are today, with all the good defencemen we have, and he\u2019s realistic but he\u2019s also a competitor. It\u2019s normal he wants more, and as coaches we hold to our beliefs. When you\u2019re honest with players, they advance and show their worth, and that\u2019s what he\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 Arber Xhekaj\u2019s play through three games of this series is proof positive that even just a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":{"0":"post-628360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-montreal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628360","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=628360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}