Martin St-Louis is clear: he loves Arber Xhekaj

[content-ads]To hear that from the coach is positive for Habs fans, especially Sheriff fans. A guy like Arber Xhekaj can be extremely useful to a club, especially when the going gets rough. But let’s also add that St-Louis won’t be planting his player in front of the media either. St-Louis was keen to reiterate that he shouldn’t focus solely on his physical game, even though he excels at it:

“That doesn’t mean you’ll have an opportunity to be physical every time you show up. Sometimes, if you only look for that, you’re going to take yourself out of the game.”

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Martin St-Louis

And the coach is absolutely right on that score. If Xhekaj is only looking for the big check, he’s more likely to take himself out of the game, and that too often costs goals at this level. But as the Habs head coach mentioned immediately afterwards, he may have three opportunities in the next shift to use his greatest asset. He just has to be patient, pick his moments, and in 2024-25, we began to see Xhekaj more reluctant to look for the hard-hitting check. Obviously, when you change aspects of a player’s game, there’s always a period of getting used to it, and the more he plays that way, the more he’ll make the right decision on the ice. St-Louis then went on to mention that he prefers to hold back an aggressive player, rather than push a timid player to be more aggressive. In short, Xhekaj will have to keep working on himself if he doesn’t want to put his club in too much hot water this season and get more playing time. spacer title=’Overtime’] – Indeed.

– Interesting.

– He’s not the first player to reiterate this point of view.

– Too bad for the Kings.

– Everything is going swimmingly for Yesavage.