Nick Cousins’ dirty trick: Arber Xhekaj “will probably think about it” tomorrow

Dose
Crédit: X

This morning, colleague Charles-Alexis Brisebois reminded us that tomorrow night, Nick Cousins will face the Canadiens again. And since he took a swing at Ivan Demidov last time out, there’s a good chance it’ll be a rough one tomorrow.

Remember that in that game, Cousins was ejected… for what he said to the referees. So he didn’t have to answer for his actions.

And it’s not just on the outside that this is attracting attention: in the dressing room, the guys are ready. And after today’s practice, Arber Xhekaj talked about it.

The man who clearly doesn’t have the Senators in his heart, as you can read in this article by Jean-François Chaumont(NHL.com), admitted it: everyone in the dressing room remembers this gesture, him first:

Yes, I’ll probably think about it [tomorrow]. – Arber Xhekaj

You have to wonder if it’s Xhekaj, who’s in a fairly higher weight class than Cousins, who’ll go and give him a message. It would be pretty uneven, we agree… but we suspect the Sheriff won’t pass up an opportunity to do so if the opportunity presents itself.

Jayden Struble, who’s already a little more in the same weight class as Cousins, was a little more nuanced, saying that the club was going to have to focus on its game… but that it was going to manage to get its message across if the opportunity arose.

Without falling into indiscipline, that said.

Clearly, we’re in for a bumpy ride tomorrow. We know that the two don’t like each other, and some of the guys in the dressing room seem ready to throw elbows to avenge Demidov if the opportunity arises.

All this at the Bell Centre on a Saturday night: it’s bound to be something.

Overtime

– I love it.

– Great read on Alex Newhook.

– Good listening.

– Interesting.

– Imagine how this will galvanize the club.