Patrick Roy and Habs legends just sent Kent Hughes a warning he can't ignore

Arber Xhekaj found himself as the unlikely centerpiece of a hockey debate this week, one that involves some of the biggest names in Montreal Canadiens history.

A group of former Canadiens champions gathered at the Mirage earlier this week, and one topic kept coming back up: toughness, or the lack of it.

Serge Savard, Larry Robinson and Patrick Roy were all in the room. So was Jean Perron, who coached the team to the 1986 Cup.

Perron shared a pointed exchange with reporters afterward. Savard, he said, kept asking why Xhekaj isn't playing more.

"They have an extraordinary team, but two of their best players are five foot six or seven," Perron recalled Savard saying. "They'll need to be protected, or they're going to get hammered out there."

That's blunt. And it's coming from a Hall of Fame defenseman who won eight Stanley Cups wearing the same sweater.

Lane Hutson put up 78 points in 82 games this year, elite numbers for a defenseman his size. Cole Caufield scored 51 goals and finished with 88 points. Ivan Demidov chipped in 62 points as a rookie winger.

None of them are physically imposing. That's the concern.

Xhekaj's bargain deal becomes the toughness blueprint

Robinson, whose name still sits atop several franchise defensive records that Hutson is chasing, put it plainly too.

"I love watching Hutson play, he's so smart out there," Robinson said. "As long as he keeps using his head and avoids getting flattened by the giants in this league, I expect him to do just fine."

Savard went further, comparing this Canadiens core to the 1986 champions he helped build. That team, he said, had more snarl.

"Your best player, nobody gets to try and demolish him," Savard said. "We had that. I'm not sure this group does, outside of one guy."

That one guy is Xhekaj. He carried a cap hit of just $1,300,000, remarkably cheap for a player these legends see as essential insurance.

His own numbers won't turn heads. Four points in 65 games, a minus-8 rating on the year. But that was never the point of these comments.

Is toughness something you can actually will into existence, or is it just a personnel problem waiting on a trade? Kent Hughes has heard the message now, loud and clear.

Montreal finished 48-24-10 for 106 points, sixth overall in the league, with a 7-3-0 mark over their last 10 games. The results are there. The armor, according to these four men, still isn't.

Adding grit before a real Cup push isn't a nice-to-have anymore. It's starting to sound like the missing piece these franchise icons won't stop pointing at.