Besides Connor McDavid’s golden goal in overtime, the most enduring memory of the 2025 4 Nation’s Face-Off will probably be the start of the Canada-USA game, when there were three fights in the first nine seconds. Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk was one of the combatants, taking down Sam Bennett in the second card of the evening.
The tournament’s second-best storyline appears to have fired up Montreal Canadiens defenceman Arber Xhekaj in advance of their visit to Ottawa on Saturday night. In his conversation with Nicolas Cloutier of TVA Sports on Friday, Xhekaj says he's ready to "butt heads" with Tkachuk when the two clubs resume NHL play at Canadian Tire Centre.
Tkachuk took centre stage at the tournament as America’s angry bull in a china shop, finishing his checks and bullying his way to the front of the opposing net. At times, the Canadians seemed to have no answer for his tactics, but the Montreal Canadiens do.
Xhekaj may not have been talking directly about fighting Tkachuk; it may simply have been a vow to be physical against him. That said, fighting is a big part of why Xhekaj is in the NHL, and after the 4 Nations brawls, he was asked directly by the Montreal media on Wednesday whether he thinks fighting still has a place in the game.
“I mean, yeah, anyone watching that game could tell you how exciting that was and how ready they got," Xhekaj said. "Like, everyone’s out of their seats. And I think, as a player, you just want to run through a wall when you see stuff like that and play for your guys who are doing that. So I think it still has a place, yeah.”
There is some feisty history here. In a pre-season game between the Sens and Habs last fall (October 1, 2024), Ottawa’s Ridly Greig caught Kirby Dach with a late hit, so Xhekaj laid one of his own on Tim Stutzle, getting five and a game for his efforts. Tkachuk immediately went after Xhekaj, but it was more of a wrestling match than anything else, with each player getting roughing minors.
In the pre-season rematch four days later, Zack MacEwen tried his hand against Xhekaj, and while he got a couple of solid shots in, it didn’t go well for the Sens enforcer.
Tkachuk wasn’t at the game-day skate on Saturday, as the Senators wanted him to rest up. Unlike most of his teammates, he didn’t get any break at all, and it sounds like Xhekaj doesn’t plan to give him one tonight either.
Given that Tkachuk is generally out there with two of Ottawa’s finest skill players, the Senators would probably welcome the matchup: Tkachuk’s line against Montreal’s 5-6 pairing. Hockey-wise, that would probably work out in their favour.
But from a fighting perspective, allowing a 5-6 defenceman to pull your best player off the ice for five minutes is not a good trade-off. However, Tkachuk is a player fuelled by emotion, so Xhekaj’s comments add legitimate fuel to what’s already a pretty solid rivalry.
If we’ve learned nothing else from Elton John and Nickelback, Saturday Night’s alright for fighting. It sure was last week, and it might be again tonight.
** Editor's note: Due to a Google translation error from Cloutier's article in French, an earlier version of this article included an inaccurate quote from Xhekaj. Our apologies for this error.