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.
In the past few hours, rumors circulated suggesting that Xhekaj might be scratched from the lineup by Martin St-Louis and sent to the press box after playing barely six minutes against the Vancouver Canucks and taking two bad penalties.
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
What great news!
"Any lineup changes?"
"No!" - Martin St-Louis
"No!" - Martin St-Louis
That settles it!
St-Louis will go with the same lineup that faced the Vancouver Canucks. Marc Del Gaizo will sit out, and Jakub Dobes gets the start.
As mentioned earlier, Jakub Dobes will start in net yet again.
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..."
St-Louis added:
"At the same time, Xhekaj's gotta keep trying to stack shifts after shifts but we want to give him more."
- via Priyanta Emrith
- via Priyanta Emrith
That pretty much sums up the current situation!
| POLL | ||
OCTOBRE 28|1277 ANSWERS Martin St-Louis Makes His Call on Arber Xhekaj as Tonight's Lineup vs. Kraken Is Revealed Do you believe Arber Xhekaj deserves more ice time? | ||
| Yes | 1064 | 83.3 % |
| No | 213 | 16.7 % |
| List of polls | ||