The hostilities at the Four Nations Faceoff, involving Brady Tkachuk, the United States, and Canada, have clearly motivated Arber Xhekaj.

It had been a while since we had seen this from the rugged Montreal Canadiens defenseman, but he sent a message to the youngest of the Tkachuk brothers in recent hours.

It will be interesting to watch.

Arber Xhekaj has a plan to throw Brady Tkachuk off his game

Tkachuk better be ready to drop the gloves tonight if he’s indeed in the lineup.

“I’m going straight to him. I’m going to crunch him. I don’t care,” Xhekaj said after practice on Friday, per TVA Sports’ Nicolas Cloutier.

“I want to make his life miserable, I want his evening to be painful.”

– Arber Xhekaj on Brady Tkachuk

Personally, I don’t hate it, because it can set the tone for this final stretch of the 2024-25 regular season.

It shows that vacation time is over!

 

 

Arber Xhekaj is waiting for Brady Tkachuk with open arms, let’s hope Tkachuk is up for the challenge.

It will certainly be special for him to return to a “normal” regular-season game after the extremely intense matchups of the past few days.

But for that to happen, Tkachuk will need to be in the lineup. He wasn’t on the ice this morning and is a game-time decision, along with his American teammate Jake Sanderson.

 

We obviously recall that Brady Tkachuk played for Team USA in recent days and was dealing with discomfort following last Monday’s game against Sweden.

 

Tkachuk, 25 years old, 6-foot-4, and 225 pounds, has 44 points in 56 games this season. (101 penalty minutes)

Xhekaj, 24 years old, 6-foot-4, and 240 pounds, has 5 points in 53 games this season. (83 penalty minutes)