MONTREAL — Arber Xhekaj’s play through three games of this series is proof positive that even just a little bit of experience goes a long way.
The 25-year-old defenceman had none in the playoffs when the Montreal Canadiens stepped on the ice for their first game against the Washington Capitals at the Bell Centre last spring. Without going through that — and everything that comes with it — there’s no way of telling whether he’d 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.
“As 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,” Xhekaj said on Friday morning. “I 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, ‘I’ve gotta play. I’ve gotta go out there. What am I doing?’ Had to slap myself out of it pretty quick.”
Easier said than done while Coldplay’s “Fix You” is being drowned out by more than 21,000 fans, turning hockey’s greatest cathedral into a madhouse.
As Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis put it, “You’ve got to be able to see things clearly through the chaos.”
For Xhekaj, they were often blurred even during the regular season — by the noise all around him, by the uncertainty of his place in Montreal’s lineup, and by his sporadic usage in games.
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.
But that experience also served Xhekaj well, because it taught him how to make the most of the least.
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.
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’s no secret as to why.
As Xhekaj said after notching an assist, five shot attempts and eight hits in just 10:40 of Friday’s Game 3 win, last year’s experience taught him how to tune out distraction and stay engaged.
“Even sometimes when there’s lots of power play or penalty kill and we’re just sitting there,” said Xhekaj, “we always make sure just to tell ourselves, ‘Simple, hard, let’s get our feet wet and get back in it.’”
Tough love from St. Louis has paid off
The coach has always known what buttons to press with Xhekaj, even if outside perception was that he’d been holding the player to an unreasonable standard.
As St. Louis said on Saturday, he’s always been able to be real with Xhekaj because of who Xhekaj has proven to be as a person.
“It’s hard to break a person who’s built themselves up,” St. Louis said. “I think this generation likes to have everything easy, but I’m happy with how he’s built himself up. Even before I came to the Canadiens, I learned how he got there. Then we started working with him. I’m proud of who Jacko (Xhekaj) is today. It’s never been linear, but he’s not someone who wants everything for free. He’s built himself up. It’s not the norm of today’s generation that wants everything easy, so it's hard to break a person that’s built themselves up that way.”
We’re 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.
That’s what Xhekaj has done.
St. Louis understanding him, and always leveling with him, has helped him do it.
“We always have conversations,” the coach said. “The player can always use an excuse and say ‘If I play more, I’ll play better,’ but the coach will say, ‘Play better, you’ll play more.’ You have to be realistic and fair, and I think we work together.”
Perspective helps, too.
“Jacko also knows that when he came into the league, we weren’t deep,” St. Louis said. “We had five rookies on defence, so for sure there were minutes there for him. And that’s fine because we were able to give him mileage early, give him experience he couldn’t buy. We didn’t have to worry about matchups and this and that.
“And then you advance to where we are today, with all the good defencemen we have, and he’s realistic but he’s also a competitor. It’s normal he wants more, and as coaches we hold to our beliefs. When you’re honest with players, they advance and show their worth, and that’s what he’s done.”
