Arber Xhekaj keeps late Canadiens-Lightning scrum in check as social media overreacts

That is the key distinction from Tuesday night in Tampa. Montreal beat the Lightning 4-1, and the ending got noisy, but it never crossed into anything rare or wild.

The clip made it look like the referees had lost the whole bench. In real time, it was the kind of standard post-whistle pile-up the NHL sees every season when a one-sided game reaches the last minute.

At 19:23, the officials handed out a stack of matching roughing minors. Another offsetting pair followed at 20:00, which says more about cleanup work than some historic meltdown.

There was no true fight, no line brawl, and no moment where the game changed because of it. It was shoving, chirping, and a lot of players getting escorted to the box because the clock was almost gone.

Xhekaj's part in it fit his usual lane. He answered the temperature, took his roughing minor, and made sure Montreal did not get pushed around in the final stretch.

That is not headline material on its own. It is just part of his job on a night where the Canadiens already had the result under control.

That is why the referee angle feels overcooked. Fans saw a crowded bench and a funny visual, then the whole sequence got dressed up like something bigger than it was.

The real story sat on the scoreboard. Montreal scored 4 goals on 23 shots, while Tampa Bay fired 37 shots and still got very little past Jakub Dobes.

Juraj Slafkovsky opened it with his 29th, Cole Caufield buried his 47th, and the Canadiens never really gave the Lightning a clean path back into the game. That mattered more than the late shoving.

Even the penalty totals tell a pretty ordinary story for a chippy finish. Montreal finished with 32 penalty minutes, Tampa Bay with 30, which looks messy on paper and felt smaller on the ice.

Martin St-Louis will take that trade every time. His club stayed composed enough to close out a road win, and Xhekaj handled the edge without turning the game into something it was not.

So yes, the ending was funny. A referee writing down half the rink always is. But the truth is simpler: this was a basic late scrum, and the internet gave it bigger shoulders than it earned.

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