Stu's Slapshots: Canadiens' Arber Xhekaj a surprising healthy scratch

I was very surprised Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis decided to make Arber Xhekaj a healthy scratch for Thursday night’s 4-2 win over the Penguins in Pittsburgh.

Xhekaj logged a season-high 16:01 of ice time in Tuesday night’s 6-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning at the Bell Centre and wasn’t on the ice for any goals against. I thought Jayden Struble would sit out to make room for Adam Engstrom after he struggled against the Lightning, finishing the game minus-2.

Xhekaj had been playing with more confidence over his last five games and said he had stopped playing with a fear of making mistakes. It reminded me of Victor Mete’s comments after the Ottawa Senators claimed him off waivers from the Canadiens in 2021, saying it was hard for young defencemen when the coach is always “breathing down your neck” creating a fear of making any mistake.

Since taking over as head coach almost four years ago, St. Louis has allowed young players to learn from their mistakes and keep playing as long as they’re one-offs instead of trends. But the coach’s leash seems to be much shorter with Xhekaj than other players.

When St. Louis was asked by Arpon Basu of The Athletic ahead of Tuesday’s game against the Lightning about young players playing without a fear of making mistakes the coach used a skiing analogy.

“You know when you’re skiing through the trees and you look at the space or you look at the trees?” St. Louis said.

Basu responded he’d look at the trees.

“Well, you’d probably hit the trees quite a bit,” St. Louis said. “To me, the trees are the negative. The space is the positive. So if you’re constantly focusing on the negative, something bad is going to happen. Your mind, it becomes your action. Hockey’s a game of mistakes. We’re trying to limit them knowing it’s impossible to go mistake-free. I know sometimes it looks like the guy made zero mistakes tonight. But if you really watch and understand the game everybody makes mistakes and sometimes the mistakes you make cost you more. But the mistakes you make are a trend or a one-off?

“So for me, the way we coach our guys, I’m not going to coach the one-off,” St. Louis added. “You coach the trends. So I feel our players are in a pretty good place mentally because of that, but we’ll stay hard on the trends. We’re aggressive with the trends. Because if you just coach the one-off you just take the instincts out of their game. In this play do this, this play should have done that … it’s like now they touch the puck and like: ‘What does he want me to do?’ And the elite players become average because you take their instinct out. And that’s why they’re elite because they have better instincts and they have the tools to do what their instincts are telling them.”

What about the non-elite players, like Xhekaj?

“They still got to this level,” St. Louis said. “They’re not the elite of the elite, but there’s still some elite in them for them to be here. So we don’t want to handcuff the players with so much coaching — but we do coach the trends.”

Xhekaj will be back in the lineup when the Canadiens play the Rangers on Saturday in New York (7 p.m., SNE, City, TVA Sports) with Struble sitting out and goalie Jacob Fowler making his second straight start.

Hopefully, for Xhekaj’s sake, he doesn’t start looking at the trees now after being a healthy scratch.

Olympic watch

Nick Suzuki had a chance to audition in front of Team Canada Olympic head coach Jon Cooper when the Canadiens played the Lightning.

Things did not go well for Suzuki or the Canadiens in the blowout loss. Suzuki picked up an assist, but was minus-2. Suzuki did have four shots on goal and won 67 per cent of his faceoffs while logging 19:45 of ice time.

St. Louis knows Cooper well after playing for him for two seasons with the Lightning during his Hall of Fame career. Before Tuesday’s game, St. Louis was asked if he had spoken with Cooper about Suzuki and Canadiens defenceman Noah Dobson, who were both invited to the Team Canada Olympic orientation camp this past summer.

“I talked to Jon this summer,” St. Louis said. “He hasn’t reached out since the season began. I feel if I put myself in Coop’s shoes I feel it’s really hard to evaluate the opponents during games. I feel you’re so focused on your team it’s really hard. You probably have to go back and watch. But I know they have a huge scouting staff and people involved in making decisions and I’m pretty sure they have a pretty good idea of what that team’s going to look like.

“There’s probably half a dozen guys on the bubble,” St. Louis added. “They’re trying to figure that out. It’s probably going to come down to what kind of role fit they need. We know we have players in the mix for that — and rightfully so. So I don’t know if Coop’s going to reach out to me again, but we’ve definitely had conversations. But I don’t think these two games against the Lightning is going to tilt it one way or the other. There’s just too big of a body of work.”

The Canadiens will play the Lightning again on Dec. 28 in Tampa. The deadline for Olympic teams to announce their rosters is Dec. 31. The hockey tournament for the Milano Cortina Olympics in Italy will run from Feb. 11-22.

“There’s not much that Nick can’t do,” St. Louis said. “Nick can play all the way up and down an all-star lineup. He can play the PP, PK. He can play wing.

“With Noah, he can do so many things on the ice,” St. Louis added. “Obviously, he’s got a great stick defensively, he’s very heady and offensively he can do the next thing pretty much everywhere on the ice — whether it’s breaking pucks up or transitioning, in the O zone, hitting it from the blue line or going down the wall and be active. Depending on what kind of O-zone strategy Team Canada’s going to play I feel like he can do a lot, whatever they want to do, and he can kill penalties, play the power play.”

Suzuki’s chances of making the Canadian Olympic team are good for the reasons St. Louis stated, but it would be a big surprise if Dobson earns a spot. Goalie Samuel Montembeault, who was also invited to Team Canada’s summer orientation camp and was the third goalie for Canada’s winning team at last season’s 4 Nations Face-Off, has no chance of making the Olympic team. Montembeault has really struggled this season with a 5-6-1 record, a 3.65 goals-against average and a .857 save percentage and has lost his No. 1 job with the Canadiens.

Coaching feedback

Before a recent practice in Brossard, St. Louis spent a long time on the ice talking with veteran defenceman Mike Matheson while using a whiteboard to draw up some kind of plays.

There was a back-and-forth discussion, which St. Louis said is something he likes to do with his players.

“I bounce stuff off a lot of my players and especially the guys that have that experience,” St. Louis said. “I always feel like as a coach you have to convince your players, but sometimes the players can convince you also so that we’re all convinced. I feel having the conversations you can really get on the same page and I enjoy doing that. I think as a coach to not listen to the players that have so much experience and what if feels like out there, I think you’re missing out.”

Caufield playing big

Cole Caufield was listed at 5-foot-7 and 163 pounds when the Canadiens selected him in the first round (15th overall) of the 2019 NHL Draft.

I was in Vancouver covering that draft. I’m 6-foot-3 and when Caufield was standing beside me doing interviews after being selected by the Canadiens I was thinking to myself: “How is this kid going to play in the NHL?”

Other NHL teams were probably wondering the same thing, which is why Caufield dropped to 15th in the draft.

Former Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin made a smart move drafting Caufield, who has 17 goals in 30 games this season and is on pace to finish with 46 goals after scoring a career-high 37 goals last season.

Caufield has become more than just a goal-scorer with the Canadiens. He’s now a solid, 200-foot player and at 5-foot-8 and 175 pounds has added a physical element to his game, not afraid to throw bodychecks or go to the dirty areas of the ice.

“I’d say I feel like I’m a better player when I’m doing that,” Caufield said. “It gets me involved a little bit more. But I think everybody’s got to be able to finish hits. You might not make a guy fall over, but for me it kind of makes me feel more engaged.

“It’s definitely fun when a guy does fall over or if he feels it,” Caufield added with a chuckle. “I’m always trying.”

Russian connection

When the Canadiens held a Homecoming Night for former defenceman Andrei Markov on Dec. 3, he had a chance to meet with rookie forward and fellow Russian Ivan Demidov.

Did Markov have any advice for Demidov, who turned 20 on Wednesday?

“I didn’t think about it,” Markov said. “I asked him how he feels. He feels comfortable here, so it’s good for him. I know he stayed all summer here and spent time in the city. I think that’s good for him.”

Markov said fellow Russian Oleg Petrov really helped him when he joined the Canadiens for the 2000-01 season after being selected in the sixth round (162nd overall) of the 1998 NHL Draft.

Longtime hockey writer Marc de Foy of the Journal de Montréal told Markov he remembered him as a “shy kid” when he arrived in Montreal.

“I’m still shy,” Markov said with a smile. “I didn’t know what to expect. I came from a different country. Everything different to me. But we had a few Russian guys on the team who helped me a lot, plus I met people outside of the rink … they helped me a lot, too. So then with the years I started to feel more comfortable.”

Markov remembered during his first rookie camp with the Canadiens finding a Russian restaurant in Montreal, which helped make him feel at home.

Markov’s closest friend with the Canadiens was P.K. Subban, who is anything but shy. They were able to get together when Markov was back in Montreal.

“You guys know P.K. is a special person,” Markov said. “I like him. I respect him. The way he never tried to be someone else … he’s P.K. You guys know P.K. It looks like he’s enjoying life right now with what he’s doing for a living (as an NHL analyst with ESPN). So I’m happy for him.”

Eller enjoying new role with Senators

It was nice catching up with Lars Eller when he was at the Bell Centre with the Ottawa Senators on Dec. 2 when they beat the Canadiens 5-2.

Time really does fly and it was nine years ago that Bergevin traded Eller to the Washington Capitals in exchange for a second-round pick at the 2017 NHL Draft (used to select centre Joni Ikonen, who never played in the NHL) and a second-round pick in 2018 that was later traded to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for a third-round pick in 2018 (used to select defenceman Jordan Harris, now with the Boston Bruins) and a fifth-round pick in 2018 (used to select centre Samuel Houde, who never played in the NHL).

Eller won the Stanley Cup with the Capitals in 2018 and has also had stints with the the Colorado Avalanche and Pittsburgh Penguins.

The 36-year-old has 2-4-6 totals in 28 games this season as a fourth-line centre with the Senators. He was hurt while blocking a shot in the Senators’ 6-3 win over the Blue Jackets on Tuesday night in Columbus and is now on the injured list.

When I asked Eller what he’s most proud about his career, he said: “I think my consistency. I think a lot of what made me be able to have the career and longevity was a lot of sacrifice in the summer and throughout the season to be adaptable. I think the players that are able to play that long are also able to check their ego and be able to adapt to maybe a different role than they had in mind for themselves. And so that’s a path and journey that a lot of players are challenged with and some guys don’t want to adapt and maybe they go somewhere else and play or you adapt and you’re able to have a long career. So I’m proud of that.”

Returning to Montreal to play at the Bell Centre remains something special for Eller.

“I like coming back here,” he said. “I like playing in this arena. I was on the ice and talked with one of the trainers (during the morning skate) who was still there when I started out. I went to dinner with a friend yesterday. So there’s still a lot of that here for me when I come back — familiarity and friendships that don’t go away. I think the only player now left is (Brendan) Gallagher, so there’s not much of that relationship anymore. But there’s still a lot of other things. It certainly means something to me to come here.”

Trending up

Jacob Fowler: He made an impressive NHL debut, stopping 36 of 38 shots in Thursday’s win over the Penguins after posting a 10-5-0 record as an AHL rookie with the Laval Rocket, along with a 2.09 goals-against average, a .919 save percentage and three shutouts. It looks like he will get a real shot at becoming the Canadiens’ No. 1 goalie.

Cole Caufield: He has points in 16 of the last 20 games with 10-12-22 totals during that span.

Brendan Gallagher: The 33-year-old ended a nine-game goal-less streak when he scored only his second goal of the season in Pittsburgh. It was Gallagher’s first even-strength goal this season.

Trending down

Samuel Montembeault: The Canadiens have lost six of the last seven games he has played in and Montembeault has a .847 save percentage during that span. Overall for the season, he has a 5-6-1 record with a 3.65 goals-against average and a .857 save percentage.

Jakub Dobes: He hasn’t been much better than Montembeault recently with a .862 save percentage in his last five games. For the season, Dobes has a 10-5-2 record with a 3.15 GAA and a .887 save percentage.

Jake Evans: He went six games without a point before missing Thursday’s game in Pittsburgh for what the team said was personal reasons. Evans, a defensive-minded centre, has the worst plus/minus on the team at minus-16, which is tied for the fourth-worst in the NHL. Evans will be back in the lineup Saturday night in New York with Jared Davidson sitting out.

scowan@postmedia.com

x.com/StuCowan1

Related