Angus Crookshank calls out Arber Xhekaj after Habs/Sens prospect game.

Things turned ugly between the young members of the Ottawa Senators and the young members of the Montreal Canadiens, during what should have ostensibly been a friendly prospects game between the two Canadian squads.

It was anything but however thanks in large part to a number of incidents involving Canadiens defenseman Arber Xhekaj, who is currently signed to the Laval Rocket of the American Hockey League. Xhekaj was involved in numerous controversial incidents throughout the game, including a late hit in the first period that sent Senators rookie Viktor Lodin to the locker room with an injury, one that would cause him to miss the remainder of the contest. There was also a moment in which Xhekaj dropped the gloves with Senators defenseman Zachary Massicotte, an exchange the ended poorly for Massicotte.

As you might expect this has left a sour taste in the mouths of some of the players on the opposing side of Xhekaj during Sunday's exhibition contest, and perhaps none more than Ottawa Senators forward prospect Angus Crookshank. Crookshank suffered a major injury around this time last season when he was on the receiving end of a hit from Arber Xhekaj. Crookshank spoke to reporters following the exhibition game on Sunday, and had some harsh words to share regarding the young Canadiens defenseman.

"It's a dirty hit," said Crookshank. "You could ask anybody in that room, there's not a lot of respect for that guy and how he carries himself to be quite frank."

To be clear the hit that caused Crookshank to suffer the injury was not a particularly dirty play, I would argue that the hits from Xhekaj on Sunday were far more controversial, but you can certainly understand why he might be particularly sensitive to seeing his teammates being injured by a player that had previously injured him.

For those of you who haven't seen the incident that led to Crookshank's injury last year, here is a short clip for the sake of sharing the full context:

We definitely haven't heard the last of this rivalry.