Xhekaj's Shootout Winner Lifts Laval Rocket Past Calgary Wranglers 4-3

Florian Xhekaj sealed it in the shootout, and suddenly Laval's North Division title race had a pulse again.

The 21-year-old forward scored the decisive shootout goal Sunday to lift the Laval Rocket past the Calgary Wranglers 4-3 at Place Bell, snapping what had been a punishing stretch of results for the North Division leaders. The AHL's official account flagged the result, a signal of just how much weight this game carried with the Calder Cup Playoffs approaching.

It was a result the Rocket badly needed. Coming into the Easter weekend series, Laval's lead atop the North Division had already been shaved to a single point after a 5-2 beating at home two nights earlier, a loss in which Calgary's Rory Kerins posted a four-point night and the Wranglers outshot the Rocket 29-18. That outcome extended Laval's skid to five losses in six games, a stretch that transformed what had been a commanding cushion into a divisional race with genuine jeopardy.

Sunday's shootout win changed the calculus. A first-round bye and home-ice advantage through the second round of the playoffs remain within reach for Pascal Vincent's club, but only if Laval can hold its ground through the final games of a 67-game regular season.

Xhekaj has been the engine of that effort. The physical forward had already scored five goals in his previous nine games entering Easter weekend, and his season total now sits at 15 goals and 26 points in 59 games, production that has come alongside 135 penalty minutes, a combination that drew NHL attention earlier this season when he made his Canadiens debut. Sent back to Laval after that call-up, he has answered every time the team needed a response.

Kaapo Kähkönen was between the pipes for the Rocket, facing a Calgary team that, despite being mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, had spent the weekend proving it had no interest in going through the motions. The Wranglers, who had never previously played in Laval before this Easter trip, arrived with 13 points in Rory Kerins' last six games and left the building making the Rocket work for every inch of ice.

That the result came down to a shootout, and that it was Xhekaj who delivered it, felt fitting. His season has been defined by moments that matter most, and Sunday at Place Bell was no different.