Zack Bolduc currently tougher than Arber Xhekaj

So I’ll rephrase my question: What good is Arber Xhekaj if he loses all his fights, doesn’t command respect, doesn’t distribute checks and lets his opponents hurt his teammates? Because let’s not forget: Tom Wilson did whatever he wanted on the Bell Centre ice yesterday, and Arber Xhekaj didn’t make him pay for hitting Jake Evans in the head. Nor did the Sheriff charge another (talented) Capitals player..

Some fans had more reaction than Xhekaj to Wilson’s hit on Evans..

Xhekaj has one assist in 19 games, has a minus-5 rating, spends only about 11 minutes per game on the ice and doesn’t stir anyone up. He’ll have to question his role on the team.

The guys who handed out the most checks yesterday were Zachary Bolduc (5) and Josh Anderson (4). Bolduc picked up an assist and finished the game at plus-1 . He did not do badly alongside Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield.

Since the start of the campaign, Bolduc has given the Canadiens the most hits (39). Slafkovsky (38), Anderson (33), Struble (31) and Veleno (30) follow behind.

And Xhekaj has just 27..

Back to yesterday’s game..

We saw last night that Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton still haven’t addressed the needs that were glaringly obvious to us during the last series. The problems we saw in April are still the same today.

The Habs players are still too fragile (and often injured), there’s a lack of toughness and experience in the lineup (although Jeff Gorton lost his job in New York due to a rebuild that focused too much on talent and not enough on physicality), and the goaltending isn’t consistent enough, the talented players are looking too hard for the perfect game, the wolf pack isn’t sticking together enough, Martin St-Louis is making some poorly defended decisions (like always sending the captain to the shootout), Slafkovsky isn’t always playing big enough and the lack of depth is glaringly obvious. Damn, I’d have liked to see Samuel Blais in red tomorrow night at the Bell Centre, and not in blue..

Even the team’s GM, who built an overly fragile team, is injured right now!

For all these reasons – and because the Canadiens aren’t a cult you can never question – I’m starting to get worried about the season and the short/medium-term future of my team.

If the playoffs started today, the Habs wouldn’t be in them(13th in the East). The excellent start to the season (against lesser teams) is already long forgotten..