Canadiens fans stunned as Kent Hughes faces warning over fan favourite trade rumor
Stu Cowan dropped a warning shot Friday night, and after Sunday's Game 7, it landed even harder. Arber Xhekaj watched the series finale in a suit while Martin St-Louis closed it out without him.
The Canadiens beat the Lightning 2-1 in Tampa to take the series in seven. Xhekaj, the 25-year-old left shot defenseman, was a healthy scratch for the biggest game of Montreal's spring.
He had played the first six games of the series. Six points of the series, zero goals, one assist, plus-3 across the run. Then nothing. Bench. Suit. Press box.
Cowan's post on May 1 framed it before the scratch even happened. If the Habs don't have a spot for the kid on the blue line next season, he wrote, plenty of teams will.
Watching him play against the Lightning in this series, the columnist added, will only fuel that line outside Kent Hughes's office.
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The eye test through six games matched the noise. Big body, mean stick, willing to step into anything Tampa tried in the neutral zone or near the crease.
Kent Hughes faces a very public blue-line decision
So why scratch him for Game 7? St-Louis hasn't laid out the reasoning publicly. The lineup choice speaks for itself, and it doesn't speak kindly.
Xhekaj carries a $1,300,000 cap hit. That's fourth-line money for a defenseman who logged 65 regular-season games and brings the kind of physical edge most contenders spend July chasing.
Montreal finished the regular season 48-24-10, good for 106 points and sixth overall. The blue line wasn't the problem. The depth chart in front of him was just deeper than the one behind him.
And now Buffalo waits. Round two opens Wednesday in western New York, with Games 1 and 2 on the road before the series shifts back to the Bell Centre.
Does the scratch hold? Or does the coach turn back to a 6-foot-4 left shot who just went plus-3 against Jon Cooper's group?
Hughes has a longer question to answer. Other front offices were already watching. They watched Sunday too. The next call he makes on this kid may not be his alone to make.
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MAY 4, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Sean Couturier | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jamie Drysdale | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Nikolaj Ehlers | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Carl Grundstrom | - | 1 | 1 | |
| K'Andre Miller | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | - | - | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Emil Andrae | - | - | - | |
| Denver Barkey | - | - | - | |
| Alex Bump | - | - | - | |
| William Carrier | - | - | - | |
| Noah Cates | - | - | - | |
| Jalen Chatfield | - | - | - | |
| Christian Dvorak | - | - | - | |
| Tyson Foerster | - | - | - | |
| Luke Glendening | - | - | - | |
| Shayne Gostisbehere | - | - | - | |
| Taylor Hall | - | - | - | |
| Mark Jankowski | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||