Every couple of weeks the same headline resurfaces, dressed up as news: the Philadelphia Flyers want Arber Xhekaj. Treat it as a fresh development and you miss the real story, which is written on Montreal’s own depth chart. The Canadiens spent this summer quietly answering the Xhekaj question, and the answer is that he is available. The only thing still in play is the price, and it drops a little every week he stays unsigned.
The Rumor That Keeps Not Happening
The Flyers’ interest in Xhekaj is not new. It is years old. Insider David Pagnotta reported again in late July that teams have been calling on the 25-year-old defenseman, Philadelphia among them, and that there is nothing new to it.
Per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period, the Flyers have been interested in Xhekaj for years, with no advancement reported as of late July.
That last part is the tell. A rumor that recycles every few weeks without moving is not a market heating up. It is a player whose team has not decided he is worth keeping, and who has not drawn an offer big enough to move him. Both of those are choices. Montreal has been making them in plain sight. This piece does not rest on the rumor being true. It rests on what the Canadiens have already done.
What the Depth Chart Already Decided
Start with the ice. Xhekaj is a left-shot defenseman on a team overloaded with them. Lane Hutson is the franchise’s present and future on the left side. Kaiden Guhle is the shutdown anchor. Mike Matheson still logs top-four minutes. And last season Jayden Struble, another lefty, climbed past Xhekaj on the pecking order and held a regular spot while Xhekaj watched from the press box.
That is four left-shot defensemen ahead of him for what is, at most, one open slot. Montreal’s actual defensive need is on the right side, not another body on the left. When a roster is stacked at one hand and thin at the other, the surplus piece with the least term and the smallest cap number is the one that moves. Xhekaj checks every box.
The Signals Montreal Sent This Summer
Look at how the Canadiens handled his contract. They tendered Xhekaj a qualifying offer at $1.3 million, the floor needed to retain his rights, not a number that signals a long-term plan. Xhekaj, for his part, declined to file for salary arbitration before the July 5 deadline, a deliberate move that keeps him eligible to receive an offer sheet from another team through December 1. Neither side is behaving like a player who is central to the room.
Then there is the usage.
Xhekaj averaged 11:25 of ice time in 2025-26, a career low, down from 14:37 the year before. That is a 22% cut in a single season, the kind of decline that does not happen by accident. Martin St-Louis trimmed his minutes and scratched him for stretches down the year. A coach votes with ice time, and the vote was already in.
The Case for Standing Pat
Here is the honest rebuttal, and it is not a weak one. Xhekaj’s qualifying offer is $1.3 million. That is nothing. A physical, cost-controlled depth defenseman on a near-minimum deal is exactly the kind of player a rebuilding team keeps, not ships. And an offer sheet for a bottom-pairing role rarely justifies the draft-pick compensation it costs, so the December 1 threat reads more theoretical than real. Why move him at all?
Because cheap is precisely the trap. The $1.3 million price is why Montreal feels no urgency to resolve this, and no urgency is how you slide into a second straight season of a young defenseman rotting in the press box while his value quietly erodes. Xhekaj is 25 and still carries a marketable identity: size, a mean streak, and a physical game that has a market around the league. His value will never be higher than it is right now, before another year of scratches tells the other 31 teams what Montreal already believes.
What Montreal Should Actually Do
The move is not to wait for the perfect package. It is to force the question. Set a hard contract deadline, or use Philadelphia’s standing interest as leverage now, while Xhekaj still profiles as a useful piece rather than a salary dump.
The fit is real. The Flyers have a right-shot defenseman Montreal could actually use in Rasmus Ristolainen, and their asking price on him is not steep.
That modest return ask is what makes a Xhekaj-centered swap plausible rather than fantasy. But it is not free money. Ristolainen has cleared 45 games just once in the past three seasons, and his contract expires after 2026-27, so Montreal would be swapping a cheap, controllable lefty for an expensive, injury-prone rental at the exact position it needs to solve for good. That is a genuine bet, not a slam dunk.
The point is that Montreal has to make the bet, or some version of it, instead of letting the Xhekaj situation drift for another year. The Canadiens already answered the question of whether he fits. The only thing left is deciding what they get back for admitting it.