Why teams calling on Montreal's defenseman actually helps the Canadiens

The interest is the best thing to happen to Montreal's blue line all summer.

David Pagnotta told Leafs Morning Take that more than one team has phoned the Canadiens about the 25-year-old defenseman.

The reporting treats this as heat on Kent Hughes. Read the situation the other way and it looks like a gift.

Xhekaj is a restricted free agent who declined arbitration before the July 5 deadline, so he carries no hearing date and no clock forcing Montreal's hand. His last deal paid a $1.3 million cap hit, which is nothing to move.

Rival general managers value Xhekaj on reputation: 6-foot-4, 240 pounds, a team-leading 178 hits and the willingness to answer for teammates.

Martin St. Louis valued him differently. In the playoffs Xhekaj averaged 8:06 a night and sat the entire Eastern Conference Final against Carolina in favour of Jayden Struble.

That distance between how the market prices him and how his own coach deployed him is not a problem. It is the profit margin.

Rival buyers are still paying for the highlight-reel hits. Montreal is watching a defenseman who managed four points and a minus-8 across 65 games.

Montreal has needed a right-shot defenseman and a top-six forward for months, with Hutson, Dobson, Matheson, Guhle, Carrier and Struble already ahead of Xhekaj.

Because he is unsigned, Hughes can run a sign-and-trade and convert a scratched depth piece into the help the roster actually lacks.

The calls are not pressure. They are price discovery on the one asset whose timeline Hughes fully controls.

Sell the reputation at the market's number, not the one your bench already marked down.

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