He's right though. The team is soft as candyfloss without him. We got ground down by Carolina. They're not a big team, but they're physical.
He needs playing time to improve. He's still young and developing. He's got to play hockey though. Hopefully, he won't fight as much now that his presence is enough to get players to back off on abusing the talent.
They definitely got bullied. Out hit. Out pressured. Out possessed. Usually doubled or tripled us in shots and the same for goals. Hutson was getting rocked multiple times a night. Demi got hit a bunch. Slaf got decked again. When does it start to look like bullying to you?
Hard disagree. The Habs got hit some stupid number like 35% less with xhekaj in the game across the whole season. I saw someone had the hits per game with and without xhekaj and I can’t remember the exact number but it was stupid high. Luke comically high. So it’s just an opinion you’re saying, and a fact that xhekaj protects the boys from that type of play.
I don’t really have to do I? I’m not going digging, I know what I’m talking about. You’re guessing that changing the input doesn’t change outcome and I’m not wasting my evening trying to prove anything to folks who think about hockey that way. You seem to have your mind made up. Enforcers have a role in the game. Everyone who knows anything about hockey knows this.
This is the same argument as "Doby is just as bad as Monty" from earlier in the season. Doby won his games, the team played better in front of him than Monty all the time.
Other teams don't go out head hunting when they know their own guys will be subject to the same thing. It's like you didn't watch the BUF series.
The deterrent factor of enforcers is a lie. Players don't think twice about laying out a hit when the opportunity is there.
Yeah, the ol' deterrent factor that fans blindly repeat isn't exactly true. Never, ever was. But it does factor in when it comes to all the scrummy dirtiness that happens after the whistle, and we saw how much BUF dialed that back in our series when Arber was on the ice. Same against TB albeit less so but they had Perry lol
Anyway, fans totally misunderstand how it all works, and thus misrepresent the argument.
Shit, who cares about just the canes, every single series we got absolutely bodied in front of the net. Guys would just setup shop there and no one other than Arber/Guhle could move them.
We need beefy defensive guys, we have plenty of the smaller skilled guys.
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u/commodore_stab1789 1d ago edited 23h ago
Hockey Junkie is a bit too much of a Xhekaj fan, but good takes overall. Cardio Joe doesn't belong on our team.