Arber Xhekaj At The Center Of NHL Controversy After Ridiculous and Weird Penalty Call

The Montreal Canadiens vs. Philadelphia Flyers game on Sunday night is filled with stories from how John Tortorella and company will respond after a rough start to the season, and Montreal has had rumblings of Martin St. Louis leaving and Arber Xhekaj's neverending saga with St. Louis.

But it was during the first period of the game when Xhekaj found himself at the center of some insane controversy. After getting into a scuffle with Flyers' forward Sean Couturier, in which Couturier dropped the gloves first, Xhekaj was blindsided by the Flyers' Nick Seeler:

It was an egregious incident and extremely unsportsmanlike of Seeler. Speaking of, there was an unsportsmanlike penalty on the play called...for Xhekaj. Yes, you heard that right. The man who was jumped on the ice after getting into a little jawjacking gets a penalty, meanwhile the player who skated 60 feet to blindside him is off scot-free. It's another example of the blatant disregard the referees and NHL have for the safety of their players, and while Xhekaj is an enforcer for sure; he did not deserve this.

The NHL will need to do some serious explaining on Monday to excuse this ridiculous call. If the league doesn't give a thorough explanation as to why the referees called Xhekaj or didn't call Seeler for anything; not only is it a bad look on the league but gives precedence for players to use this lack of punishment to have free reign to do what they please. Montreal ended up prevailing 4-3, but it's still a ridiculous incident.

It's another weird tally on the season of Montreal so far. Already talks around Martin St. Louis' future, the current status of their injured stars, and trade talks around Aber Xhekaj, this craziness adds a frankly dumb wrinkle. I find it hard to believe the referees didn't have an agenda after seeing who was involved, focusing solely on punishing Xhekaj instead of Couturier who instigated the scuffle, or Seeler who led a blindside charge. The NHL needs to figure it out fast because people will get seriously hurt if this keeps up.

It was a bizarre incident in an already crazy 2024-2025 season, and with only an eighth of the season done, who knows what other wild things we'll see as the season progresses.