On the eve of training camp, the Habs took care of their last restricted free agent, announcing that they’ve re-signed defenceman Arber Xhekaj to a one-year, $1.5 million deal.
The contract represents just a $200,000 increase compared to what he made over the last two seasons. Considering he could have likely beaten that in arbitration, it’s unclear why he chose not to go that route in the first place.
Xhekaj signed with Montreal back in 2021 and made the rare jump from the OHL to the NHL a year later. While he wasn’t playing every night, he was holding his own on the third pairing while bringing plenty of toughness to the lineup.
However, over the last couple of seasons, his defensive game has waned, leading to a much shorter leash from Martin St. Louis. While Xhekaj made it into 65 games last season, his playing time dropped to just 11:25 per night, well below the near-16-minute rate from just two years ago. In the playoffs, when he did get into the lineup, he barely played eight minutes a night.
Unsurprisingly, both sides opted for a one-year deal as trying to figure out a market rate on a multi-year agreement that both sides would have been happy with would have been next to impossible. Xhekaj now gets another chance to prove that he’s worthy of steady minutes on the third pairing while Montreal gets a blueliner at a relatively low cost.
Xhekaj will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights once again next summer. He’ll be owed a qualifying offer of $1.575 million at that time under the new qualifying offer rules that come into play today.
As for Montreal’s salary cap situation, they now have a little under $2.8 million in cap room, per PuckPedia. That number should be increased when the team goes down to two goalies, adding at least $945,000 in extra flexibility. That will leave them ample coverage for early-season injuries and in-season movement or a big buffer toward the bonuses that will be reached by Ivan Demidov, Chris Kreider, and others.