This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Arber Xhekaj
Montreal Canadiens Defense
Undrafted, six foot four and 240 pounds, and four of his five goals came from beyond forty feet.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | MTL | 51 | 5 | 8 | 13 | -9 | 101 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 75 | 6.7 | 15:16 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 51 | 5 | 8 | 13 | -9 | 101 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 75 | 6.7 | 15:16 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
5 goals and 8 assists in 51 games — 13 points — with 101 penalty minutes. Minus-9, 15:16 a night, 75 shots.
One hundred and one penalty minutes is twelfth in the league, and he did it in fifty-one games as a rookie.
42.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 10th percentile, with his ice at 24-30 against an expectation of 26.15-35.60 — six goals better at the defensive end than the chances deserved.
One season, 51 games, 13 points.
The Finesse Game
75 shots at a median of 55 feet, 1 per cent from inside twenty and 84 per cent from beyond forty. That is the most perimeter shot chart of any Montreal player and one of the most extreme in the book.
Beyond forty: 58 shots on goal and 4 goals — 6.90 per cent, more than double the league rate for defencemen of 3.17. Inside forty: 13 shots, 1 goal.
Four of his five goals came from beyond forty feet. Fifty-eight shots is a small sample and this book will not turn 6.90 per cent into a skill on that evidence — but it is the opposite result from the one the forty-foot split usually finds, and it is worth recording as an exception rather than explaining away.
96.9 mph at the 88th percentile, on seventeen slap shots. If the four goals came from anywhere, they came from there.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 240 — the heaviest skater in this chapter, and 101 penalty minutes in fifty-one games.
Top speed 21.6 mph, the 16th percentile; bursts 0.2 a game, the 5th; 2.26 miles a game, the 29th. He is slow by every measure the feed takes.
What he is for is the other thing. He fights, he cross-checks, he clears the front of his own net and he answers for teammates, and Montreal did not have any of that before him. At 240 pounds nobody moves him and nobody wants to be there.
The cost is the 5th-percentile bursts. A defenceman who cannot recover is beaten permanently once he is beaten, and the 10th-percentile chance share is partly that.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, out of the Ontario league, signed by Montreal out of junior, and an NHL rookie a year later.
57.5 per cent of his five-on-five shifts started in the attacking zone, the 83rd percentile — one of the softest shares on the blue line, which the 10th-percentile chance share should be read against.
He is twenty-two, he is enormous, he has one NHL skill and it is not one this book can measure well. The question is whether a modern club can carry a defenceman at the 5th percentile in bursts, and the honest answer is that fewer of them can every year.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
83.8% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 95th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
4 of 83 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 4.8%, 97th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
“**Undrafted**, out of the Ontario league, signed by Montreal out of junior, and an NHL rookie a year later.”
“He fights, he cross-checks, he clears the front of his own net and he answers for teammates, and Montreal did not have any of that before him.”
“He fights, he cross-checks, he clears the front of his own net and he answers for teammates, and Montreal did not have any of that before him.”
“At 240 pounds nobody moves him and nobody wants to be there.”
“A defenceman who cannot recover is beaten permanently once he is beaten, and the 10th-percentile chance share is partly that.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 724 minutes
- Expected goals
- 42.4%
- 10th pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.4%
- 33rd pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 24 for, 30 against. Expected: 26.1 and 35.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 43 points above where the numbers do. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 66 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2022-23 · 51 games
- Top speed
- 21.6 mph
- 49th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.20 a game
- Distance
- 2.26 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 96.9 mph
- 83rd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.0
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2022-23 · 724 minutes at five-on-five
- Chris Widemanoff the roster41%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2022-23
- The club
- MTL took 44.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 42.4% — 1.6 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 724 minutes at five-on-five — 32nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Wideman | 39.7% | 44.4% | 42.8% |
| Josh Anderson | 39.9% | 43.5% | 45.2% |
| Christian Dvorak | 43.5% | 41.9% | 42.0% |
39.7% together, 44.4% for him apart and 42.8% for Wideman apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
99 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 51 feet. 1% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 84% from beyond forty.