Nick Bobrov had made more than one person laugh when he described Florian Xhekaj as a “unicorn”. It seems he was right about the Rocket’s attacker.
What Xhekaj is doing is simply impressive this season. With no high expectations for him before the start of the campaign, he can now boast of having already scored 15 goals in his rookie season.
He ranks 10th among the top scorers in the AHL among rookies.
This is not to mention his 130 penalty minutes, which make him the most penalized player in the entire AHL! It’s not mixing, with his 130 penalty minutes in 49 games, he has more than Nikita Zadorov, who leads the NHL with 119 penalty minutes, but has also played 13 more games than the Rocket player.
When Xhekaj is on the ice, it’s a stir.
In the last episode of his podcast Recrutes Draftclass, Grant McCagg even discovered that what Xhekaj is doing has not been achieved since the 2005-06 season in the AHL.
McCagg found that Xhekaj is the first rookie player since 2005-06 to have scored at least 15 goals and collected at least 120 penalty minutes in the AHL. Jean-François Jacques of the Hamilton Bulldogs had done it.
We hope Xhekaj has a better career than Jacques, but it’s impressive to see him do extremely rare things. As if his “unicorn” status wasn’t crazy.
With his 15 goals, Xhekaj is the fourth-best scorer on the Rocket, ahead of players like Owen Beck and Alex Barré-Boulet.
If he wants to earn a spot in the NHL, he’ll have to be more disciplined, that’s for sure, but the Canadiens will certainly ask him to keep that kind of grit. It’s exactly what can help Montreal on a fourth line.
As a rookie in the AHL, it would be surprising to see Xhekaj get called up by the Canadiens, but it’s the kind of call-up that could be interesting to see in the coming years. Montreal might even try him out as early as next season to see how he stacks up against top-notch players.
In any case, his big brother, Arber, dreams of the day when he could play with him in the Tricolore uniform.
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