Dirty Hit on Dach Ignites Chaos as Couturier Challenges Xhekaj, but Seeler Storms In and Takes Him Down

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Tom Banks
October 27, 2024 (8:21 PM)

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Arber Xhekaj is building a reputation as one of the toughest players in today's NHL, and on Sunday, more than one Philadelphia Flyer wanted a piece of him.

When the Montreal Canadiens take the ice, it's always expected that if he's in the lineup, Arber Xhekaj will find himself in some type of chaos and mischief throughout a game. On Sunday against the Philadelphia Flyers, that happened once more, but this time he was standing up for his teammates after Sean Courturier laid this hit on forward Kirby Dach.

Unsurprisingly, Xhekaj went straight after the Flyers captain, with the two dropping the gloves shortly after, but unfortunately, they were unable to get this going properly for a heavyweight tilt.

Before that could happen, Nick Seeler stepped in and interrupted proceedings, leading to a scrum on the ice that saw the officials forced to step in and shut things down. Given how brutal we've seen Xhekaj be in fights before, it's no shock that Seeler didn't want to see his captain go toe-to-toe with the man known as The Sheriff, and while him intervening certainly wasn't a popular choice, it was the right one.

This isn't the first time Montreal have seen an opposing veteran go after one of their young names by targeting the head, as this comes less than a week after Jacob Trouba knocked out Justin Barron with an elbow to the head. While this shot from Courturier was not as bad as that one from Trouba, he still clearly targeted the head of Dach in a very unnecessary way.

It's unclear if things will go down the next time these two teams meet up, but with the chirping still happening in this one, don't rule out seeing the gloves dropped again before this game is done.