From the top of your head: How many Austrian players have ever been drafted into the NHL?
Let’s hold on to the answer for a minute. This year, we are almost certain to get another first-rounder to park next to the previous top prospects Marco Kasper, Marco Rossi, Michael Grabner, and Thomas Vanek.
What makes David Reinbacher special compared to those names is simple — he is a defenceman.
Birthplace: Hohenems, Austria
Date of birth: October 25, 2004
Shoots: Right
Position: Defenceman
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 187 lbs.
Team: EHC Kloten (NL)
Right-handed defencemen are usually premium in the draft. The reason behind it is pretty straightforward — they are traditionally more rare to find than their left-handed equivalent.
A recent piece on the subject provided by Lev Akabas at Sportico tells a tale of an NHL with a clear difference between righties and lefties. By the time of the article (February 3, 2023), less than 40% of the defencemen who had played at least 300 minutes during this NHL season held their stick to the right. That scarcity is reflected by a difference in pay. As of today, seven out of the 10 best paid blueliners are right-handed. The article also demonstrates another cost correlation, with left-handed defencemen being paid on average $0.45 million less than their counterparts.
Hence, there are a number of reasons why teams highly covet right-handed blueliners and are willing to pay good dollars to get their hands on the really good ones. Quantitative statistics has shown that teams are better off playing defencemen on their strong side, which just adds to the case.
The best solution to getting a right-handed defenceman of quality in your system? You draft them yourself, without having to overbid during free agency or pay heavy assets to your competitors.
In a draft class that is heavily tilted toward offensive skill, quality defensive talents in general are few and far between. On EP Rinkside’s current rankings, only three defencemen crack the top 20 players.
Enter: David Reinbacher.
He started the year as a good, solid prospect who had done well in the Swiss second tier as a first-year senior player. Reinbacher played 27 regular season games and an additional 14 during the playoffs as Kloten made their way back to the top tier of Swiss hockey.
This, his first season in the top division, has significantly increased his draft stock. Few defencemen are able to play as mature a game as Reinbacher does, against senior opponents. His calling card has always been his responsibility and defensive ability. But, as Thomas Roost points out during EOTP’s Patrik Bexell’s interview, he has started to demonstrate enough transition ability and offensive qualities that it is believable to think of him as a future two-way defenceman rather than only being the one-dimensional shutdown type.
Preliminary Rankings
Elite Prospects: #12
Hockey Prospect: #19
FCHockey: #20
McKeen’s: #26
Bob McKenzie (TSN): #20
Hadi Kalakeche: #20
NHL Central Scouting: #10 (European Skaters)
Dobber Prospects: #28
Scott Wheeler (The Athletic): #17
Corey Pronman (The Athletic): #7
If you wonder what kind of responsibility Kloten’s coaching staff has put on their young prodigy, you needn’t look any further than to his time on ice. In their first season back in the top tier, fighting for a new contract, Reinbacher has averaged the second-most minutes of any blueliner with his 18.56 minutes per game.
He also leads all teenagers, defencemen as well as forwards, in points by a wide margin. The second most prominent teen player in this year’s National League, fellow blueliner Dario Sidler, put up seven points in 45 games while averaging less than eight minutes per game in ice time.
A difference in terms of coach confidence or just a sign that Reinbacher got an opportunity and seized it? Well, there is only one player who has had a more productive draft season while playing in the Swiss league. That player’s name is Auston Matthews and the season was 2015-16.
Reinbacher may not wow you with the tools he has at his disposal, but he is a mobile, well-educated defenceman with some offensive upside and clear top-four potential. I mentioned in a comment here on the site when discussing the Montreal Canadiens draft selection of Kaiden Guhle back in 2020, that getting a safe player does not necessarily have to mean that the player is boring.
Adding Reinbacher to their prospect pool would give a team a future workhorse, who already has demonstrated an ability to play heavy minutes in a professional hockey league. He could provide value on special teams, play up and down a defensive lineup, and has ideal size as well as decent mobility.
Last year, the New Jersey Devils passed on Logan Cooley and Shane Wright to select Šimon Nemec second overall. When Columbus came up to make their choice at number six, they went with David Jiříček instead of Matthew Savoie or Connor Geekie. In 2019, Detroit shocked the hockey world by taking Moritz Seider sixth overall. All of these examples are just proving how right-handed defencemen with both size and mobility are among the most valuable assets in today’s NHL.
In a draft class with clear scarcity in terms of defensive prospects with a proven record, the only remaining question for Reinbacher is how high a team will end up drafting him. Top ten? Top five? I guess we’ll have to wait until June 28 to find out.
Oh, right. We must not forget the question in the intro! The answer is 16 Austrians have been drafted into the NHL between 1995 and 2022. One player even ended up getting selected twice, in 1997 by the Habs, as well as in 1999 by the Dallas Stars.
Scott Matla
