The Canadiens' numbers challenge Jeff Marek's Arber Xhekaj claim

The Montreal Canadiens' own deployment numbers suggest something closer to a bargain.

Marek's line - that a team may want Xhekaj without needing him - landed because it feels intuitive.

A 6-foot-4, 240-pound defenseman who scored one goal in 65 games sounds like an indulgence rather than a necessity.

Then you run the rates, and the argument inverts.

Xhekaj logged 178 hits across roughly 742 minutes last season, an average of 11:25 per night. That is about 14 hits per 60 minutes played.

In the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Martin St-Louis trimmed him to 8:06 a night, and Xhekaj appeared in 13 of Montreal's 19 postseason games.

His production did not shrink with his ice time. He delivered 45 hits and two points in roughly 105 playoff minutes.

That is close to 26 hits per 60, nearly double his regular-season rate.

A luxury item is something you overpay for and barely use. Xhekaj carried a $1.3 million cap hit and played fourth-pair minutes.

He is the cheapest possible version of the thing every playoff team says it needs in May.

That is not indulgence. That is leverage, and Kent Hughes is right to price it accordingly.

David Pagnotta has reported both the Philadelphia Flyers and Calgary Flames circling the unsigned restricted free agent.

Neither is shopping for a top-four defenseman. They are shopping for a rate.

Buying concentrated physicality at eight minutes a night is far cheaper than paying a four-million-dollar contract for a top-four defender who happens to finish checks.

Montreal already solved that problem for $1.3 million.

Selling it now means paying retail to replace it later.

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