David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported this week that teams have been calling the Montreal Canadiens about Arber Xhekaj, and RG’s Marco D’Amico confirmed that multiple clubs have reached out about the defenseman. Both reports carry the same caveat: Montreal is taking the calls, not making them.
The interest is easy to understand. Xhekaj is 25, 6-foot-4, and plays a punishing style few defensemen still offer — and his acquisition cost is depressed by circumstance. He is a restricted free agent, still unsigned for 2026-27, coming off a season in which his role shrank under Martin St. Louis until he had slipped out of the defense pecking order by the playoffs.
The squeeze on his minutes is structural. Six defensemen from last season’s roster are already under contract for 2026-27, two more are pushing for jobs from below, and Xhekaj’s path back to a regular shift is not obvious. Any team calling Montreal is betting on what he would look like with eighteen or twenty minutes a night somewhere else — a bet the Canadiens’ own staff declined to make down the stretch last season.
There is no forcing function on Montreal’s side, though. The Canadiens enter the season with roughly $14 million in cap space and 20 players under NHL contract, per D’Amico’s reporting, so Kent Hughes can settle his restricted free agents without moving anyone out. Hughes can hold Xhekaj’s rights, get the contract done, and revisit the trade question whenever the price reflects more than a down season. Listening costs nothing; selling low on a 25-year-old defenseman is how retools stall.
In fantasy terms, Xhekaj is a category specialist — hits and penalty minutes with modest scoring — and in Montreal’s current depth chart he is a deep-league option at best. A trade into a guaranteed top-four role would change his floor overnight, so managers in banger leagues should track where his contract talks land before draft season.
