This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Arber Xhekaj
Montreal Canadiens Defense
Six foot four, 240 pounds, undrafted, 182 penalty minutes in 95 games, and one shot from inside twenty feet all season.
| 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 | MTL | 44 | 3 | 7 | 10 | +6 | 81 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 61 | 4.9 | 15:56 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 95 | 8 | 15 | 23 | -3 | 182 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 136 | 5.9 | 15:35 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 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
44 games, 3 goals and 7 assists for 10 points, 81 penalty minutes, 15:56 a night and plus-6. He took 47.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 649 minutes, the 35th percentile, and his ice went 32-24 against an expectation of 26.01-28.78.
Six goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and five fewer conceded than they called for. The plus-6 is the best mark on a club that finished 28th, and it belongs to a third-pair defenceman who played forty-four games.
The Finesse Game
88 attempts at a median of 57 feet, ninety per cent of them from beyond forty and exactly one from inside twenty, converted at 4.9 per cent.
15 career assists in 95 games. That is the shot chart of a man who has been told to put it at the net from the point and has never been told anything else. There is no puck-moving and there is no power play.
The Physical Game
He hits harder than anybody in this chapter at 6-4 and 240, and 182 career penalty minutes in 95 games is what that costs.
He will fight anybody in the league and has, he clears the crease, and nobody moves him out of the front of his own net. On a club that spends the fifth-most time shorthanded in hockey, eighty-one minutes from a third pairing is a real charge against the value.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, out of Hamilton, Ontario, two seasons, and 23 points in 95 games, all of it for one organisation.
He is 23 and undrafted and has played ninety-five games in the National Hockey League. On the second-youngest roster in the edition he is the man the twenty-year-olds get to play behind, and that is worth more here than it would be almost anywhere else.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 649 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.5%
- 35th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49%
- 46th 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: 32 for, 24 against. Expected: 26.0 and 28.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 2 points of one another. 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.
Both bars are percentiles among the 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 63 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.
Usual linemates
2023-24 · 649 minutes at five-on-five
- David Savard40%
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, 2023-24
- The club
- MTL took 46.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.5% — 1.4 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 649 minutes at five-on-five — 29th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| David Savard | 52.7% | 43.8% | 42.6% |
| Cole Caufield | 48.7% | 46.9% | 49.1% |
| Brendan Gallagher | 53.1% | 45.1% | 49.6% |
52.7% together, 43.8% for him apart and 42.6% for Savard apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
88 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 49 feet. 1% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 90% from beyond forty.