Trevor Timmins had never seen a story like this before

“He shows us that he is a hockey player.”

This sentence from Martin St. Louis after Saturday’s game means a lot. In the NHL, managers often divide players into two groups. Those who play hockey are hockey players. Tell yourself that you are better off in the second set than in the first.

Arber Xhekaj is indeed a hockey player. At six feet four, this left-handed defensive man is now surprising the NHL world.

After a rookie camp where he imposed himself physically (talking to the senators players), he had a training camp that was up to the task, showing that not only was he a player who could hurt an opponent, but he was also able to hold himself offensively.

With one goal and two assists in six games since the start of the season, the defender is the two Canadians with the most points. Who would have believed it.

Never set foot in replay

So it’s hard to predict what kind of career Arber Xhekaj will have because his roof seems too far to reach and also because his path is not traditional. First, he was never drafted into OHL and when Kitchener Rangers decided to give him a chance when he was 17, he played around 20 games in attack.

The following season, it was really after Christmas that he started to show he had the offensive talent for a defensive man of his size and he knew the Canadians as well as the Rangers were watching him in the next draft.

But something big happened, and that was the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020, forcing the Canadian junior teams to close.

“If I had been able to play in the playoffs, I think I would have been able to show my true value and maybe the team would have shaped me then,” Xhekaj told me in the Canadian dressing room on Monday.

But the rest of the story, we know it now. No team dared recruit him and the two Canadians invited him to the rookie camp in 2021 (Trevor Timmins had lobbied hard for an invite) and this is where he really showed what he could do (he later signed a contract with CH), despite the fact He hasn’t played a single game in 2020-21 since the Ontario government banned the OHL from holding a season.

Today, we’re still left wondering how a player who’s been seen by so many scouts can end up averaging 15 minutes of playing time per NHL game, without having put down a single sled in the NHL.

In a conversation with Timmins, who was in charge of recruiting Canadians from 2002 until last year, Lee admitted that he had never seen a story like that of Arber Xhekaj.

“It’s a story that deserves to be in a movie,” Blue Jackets’ new assistant hiring manager told me.

Furthermore, Timmins gives a lot of credit to Matt Tarek in this profile. He was a scout with the Canadians (and personnel manager with the Hamilton Bulldogs) and had a 4v4 summer in the Hamilton area, where Xhekaj played.

So it was Tariq who pushed for Arber Xhekaj to be in the Habs plans. He also insisted he be traded from Kitchener to Hamilton last season and now Matt Tarek was appointed interim general manager for the Bulldogs two weeks ago.

A battle that will go down in history

Of course Thursday’s Arber Xhekaj fight against Zack Kassian was all about the league. We’re talking about batting against one of the best NHL fighters. The novice Canadian received a lot of messages on his cell phone.

However, ahead of Saturday’s game, Lee revealed that there is a former NHL player helping him navigate a world he is getting to know.

“Zach Rinaldo is also from Hamilton and he takes good care of the players from that region. He helps me understand what I need to do and gives me tricks of the trade. I met him at his golf tournament three years ago and we have been in touch ever since. He is someone who encourages me a lot.” .

Because at the end of the day, in addition to fighting and his offensive and defensive features, it is Xhekaj’s mental strength that helps him succeed now.

Over the years, he’s seen several defensemen being recruited, either into the OHL or the NHL, knowing full well that he’s been better than some of them. But instead of giving up, he decided instead to get up every morning with the goal of getting over himself and not setting up barriers.

Today he’s in the NHL and maybe, for his own good, he’ll have to spend a few weeks at Laval to spend some time in the power game, among other things.

But one thing is for sure, if he continues to be indispensable, as he currently is, there will likely be a good debate about it among the team leaders.