{"id":439614,"date":"2024-04-09T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T15:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=439614"},"modified":"2024-04-09T17:26:18","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T21:26:18","slug":"montreal-canadiens-defenceman-arber-xhekaj-injury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/04\/09\/montreal-canadiens-defenceman-arber-xhekaj-injury-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal Canadiens Defenceman Arber Xhekaj Injury News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/canadiens\/\" target=\"_self\">Montreal Canadiens<\/a> defender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/x\/xhekaar01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-09_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arber Xhekaj<\/a> will be out for the rest of the season with a left shoulder injury. Today\u2019s announcement is that he will require surgery on his shoulder. This is unfortunate news for the physical Montreal blueliner, but hopefully, the timing is good. Montreal is not currently playing meaningful games, and <a href=\"https:\/\/montrealgazette.com\/sports\/hockey\/nhl\/hockey-inside-out\/canadiens-take-arber-xhekaj-off-injured-reserve-and-send-him-to-laval\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the team expects him<\/a> to be ready to go for September\u2019s training camp.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Arber Xhekaj Gone for the Season Following Surgery on Left Shoulder Injury<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Arber Xhekaj season is over. He needs a surgery on his left shoulder. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CanadiensMTL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@CanadiensMTL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/renlavoietva\/status\/1777705172673683655?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 9, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This injury news wraps up a bit of a disappointing season for Arber Xhekaj from a personal standpoint. He missed a couple of weeks back in late November with what was also a left shoulder injury. As a result, between the injury and also working on his game, he ended up playing some down with the Laval Rocket. Now, it is also related to his contract status, and being one of the few waiver-exempt options for the Canadiens.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This year statistically for Montreal, Xhekaj played in 44 games and recorded three goals and seven assists. Moreover, during his time in the AHL, 17 games worth, he scored three times and added eight assists. He continues to be a physical force when he is out there for Montreal. Thus far in 95 career games he has totaled 182 penalty minutes. Furthermore, he has thrown an impressive number of hits at 284. He is a strong piece for Montreal\u2019s blueline future.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">What Does this Mean for Montreal<\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">With the news of the Arber Xhekaj injury requiring surgery, it doesn\u2019t really impact Montreal\u2019s fortune too much. Montreal has been near the bottom of the NHL\u2019s Eastern Conference, currently 2nd last with 70 points. The main hope is that Xhekaj can come back healthy for the start of the 2024-25 season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main photo: David Kirouac &#8211; USA Today Sports<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Montreal Canadiens defender Arber Xhekaj will be out for the rest of the season with a left shoulder injury. Today\u2019s announcement is that he will require surgery on his shoulder. This is unfortunate news for the physical Montreal blueliner, but hopefully, the timing is good. Montreal is not currently playing meaningful games, and the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4222,"featured_media":436862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4547,6671],"tags":[7648,1576,152],"class_list":["post-439614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-canadiens","category-hockey","category-injuries","tag-arber-xhekaj","tag-injury","tag-montreal-canadiens"],"modified_by":"Levi Pike, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}