Pricing Out Arber Xhekaj’s Next Contract

The Habs still have some work to do this summer with both Arber Xhekaj and Justin Barron in need of new contracts.  Let’s try to price out what Xhekaj’s deal could look like.

While some would like to see the Canadiens work out a long-term contract with the 23-year-old, there are a couple of factors that make that particular outcome unlikely.

For starters, he has missed time due to multiple shoulder injuries and admitted to playing through discomfort in between.  While you don’t want to necessarily use that to label a player as injury-prone, it stands to reason that Montreal may have some concerns about the lingering shoulder trouble.  In that case, they’re likely going to hesitate on the idea of a long-term agreement.

The second reason is that Xhekaj just doesn’t have that big of a body of work under his belt.  His entire first season was spent in junior, injuries limited him to 51 games in his rookie year, and between injuries and time spent in Laval in 2023-24, he only got into 44 games with the big club.  With only 95 NHL appearances in total, that’s not enough of a body of work for frankly either side to be comfortable with a long-term agreement.

That means a bridge deal should be coming Xhekaj’s way.  He’s four years away from unrestricted free agency so realistically, a three-year contract is the longest he’d probably get.  Personally, I think two years will be the target from the Habs but we’ll look at both options.

Let’s look at a few potential comparable players on either side of the coin.  Worth noting is that I’m only going to look at players in similar situations as Xhekaj – ones coming off their entry-level contract.  I’ve seen some pricier comparables suggested but those were third contracts, ones that carried arbitration eligibility and added years of club control.  Those don’t generally apply in these types of negotiations so we’ll restrict our options accordingly.

One of the better recently signed comparable contracts is actually his teammate Jordan Harris.  He only had 75 games before his bridge deal kicked in but the per-game offensive numbers are pretty similar.  While Harris isn’t anywhere near as physical as Xhekaj, that is offset somewhat by the fact that Harris’ ATOI was nearly three minutes a game higher than Xhekaj’s at the same time.  Harris signed a two-year agreement at $1.4 million per year (1.68% of the Upper Limit).  The salary cap is a bit higher now so if we take 1.68% of the current cap ($88 million), we’re looking at an AAV of just under $1.48 million.

Winnipeg’s Dylan Samberg also has the same AAV as Harris and a somewhat similar profile, something management is likely to point to in discussions with Xhekaj’s representatives.

Another recent possible comparable is Philadelphia’s Cam York.  He had 87 games at the time of signing with a handful more points and a nearly four-minute ATOI gap over Xhekaj.  He also was a first-round pick; that pedigree can also play a role in contract talks.  His deal was two years at $1.6 million per year; the equivalent today based on cap percentage is just under $1.69 million per season.

Xhekaj’s camp will likely want to point to Jake Bean.  Not the contract he just signed with Calgary as a UFA but the one before that.  After just 42 games and an ATOI of just over 14 minutes (less than Xhekaj), Columbus gave him a three-year deal with a cap hit of $2.33 million, an equivalent today of around $2.517 million.  His camp would probably want more than that.  Granted, this is a three-year agreement but even a two-year contract with this deal as a base comparable probably comes around the high one/low two range which seems on the high side.

If the two sides consider a three-year pact, Montreal’s side will probably bring up Nicolas Hague in Vegas.  He had 142 games under his belt with slightly better offensive numbers and an ATOI of 17:00, about a minute and a half more than Xhekaj.  He signed in 2022 for just under $2.3 million per season, worth around $2.446 million today.  With Hague having accomplished more at the same point in time, the Habs would be right to argue that a three-year agreement for Xhekaj should come in a few hundred thousand below that figure.

There are others out there but these five players all signed post-ELC contracts that retained RFA eligibility at its expiration, giving us a decent-sized pool of directly comparable deals to work from.  Based on these, a price point around $1.5 million on a two-year deal feels like the right fit.  A three-year agreement probably pushes the cost past $2 million per season, probably closer to $2.25 million.  With where Xhekaj is in his career so far and the question marks that remain about his shoulder and overall role (can he be more than a third-pairing piece?), I think the Habs would prefer to do the two-year deal now and then use the bigger sample size to work from in 2026 to come to a longer-term agreement.

These are the types of contracts that can drag out for a while as Xhekaj’s camp has little leverage unless he can find someone willing to give him an offer sheet at the price point he wants.  Never say never but that doesn’t seem likely.  With that in mind, this is the type of negotiation that could be done in a day or two or a day or two into training camp; both scenarios are legitimate possibilities.  Knowing that, don’t be too concerned if this drags out into August and September.