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"Blatant intent to injure", "Gutless play": NHL fans bash Arber Xhekaj's attempted hit on Noel Acciari which sparked full-out Pens-Habs scrum
In the final moments of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 3-1 win over the Canadiens on Saturday night, a scrum broke out between the players of the two teams. This happened when Habs D-man Arber Xhekaj went after Noel Acciari to avenge the hit on Juraj Slafkovsky.
Throughout the game, Noel Acciari delivered several strong hits including a late one that injured Montreal’s Juraj Slafkovsky, catching him in the jaw and forcing him to leave the game.
When Pittsburgh’s coach Mike Sullivan sent Acciari back on the ice in the final minutes of the game, Xhekaj confronted him with an attempted knee-on-knee which led to an all out scrum between the two teams. Some serious pushing and shoving ensued until the linemen stepped in.
Clips of the scrum have since been making rounds on the internet. Fans on social media condemned the Habs defenseman in the comments for attempting to go knee-to-knee on Acciari.
Following are some fan reactions from X:
“That ought to be a 5+ game suspension honestly. Blatant intent to injure.”
“Knee on knee at the end of a 1-3 game. Call me soft but that has to be some sort of fine or suspension he could have seriously injured Acciari,” weighed in one fan.
“Send that bum back to Costco 💀💀 only knows how to be dirty on the ice,” quipped another user.
Some fans even called out the Habs to send Arber Xhekaj back to the AHL. Others criticized his play.
“What a gutless play by xhekaj.”
“Dumbass NHL won't suspend anybody unless the player gets hurt. The intent is clearly there; he should be suspended or at least fined,” commented one user.
“Brilliant job by the refs. Xhekaj spears somebody 10 feet in front of a ref in the 2nd and tries to destroy somebody's knee at the end of the game when he should have been tossed,” wrote another user.
Arber Xhekaj confronted Leafs' Cedric Pare for knee-on-knee collision with Patrik Laine in September
The whole situation is rather ironic given that just in September, Arber Xhekaj had fiercely confronted Toronto Maple Leafs' Cedric Pare in a preseason game where a knee-on-knee collision left Patrik Laine writing on the ice.
Seeing his teammate in pain, Xhekaj took matters into his own hands. He waited until Pare's next shift, then confronted him with a barrage of right-handed punches, quickly taking Pare to the ice.
Pare, caught off guard, tried to shield himself, but Xhekaj kept swinging until the officials intervened. Xhekaj even received a game misconduct penalty as the instigator of the fight that night.
Patrik Laine is now recovering from a sprained ankle that will take about two to three months for him to return to the ice, per the Habs. While Noel Acciari was not injured on Saturday night, fans think Arber Xhekaj’s intent to cause damage was clear on footage.
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