Arber Xhekaj’s reduced role under Martin St-Louis ahead of playoffs draws reaction from Georges Lara
“Look at the lineup, we’re too small. In the regular season, those things slide, but in the playoffs, the refs start blowing the whistle, and that takes away the Habs’ advantages.
You know what my theory is? What we should do? Give Xhekaj his confidence back. He was playing 15 minutes a game like before, and then in the playoffs you’ve got your physical guy ready. Give him his confidence back so that in the playoffs he’s playing every game. There were 57 games to do that.
The more we move forward, the more his ice time drops. At the start of the season, we were saying he was playing the best hockey of his career. What happened? He went from 15 minutes to 5 minutes, and then he wasn’t playing at all. What did he do?
And now we’re talking about going out to get another physical defenseman. You already have a physical defenseman on the team…”
– Georges Laraque
