The Montreal Canadiens went into the draft with a high pick and a few holes in their organizational makeup. In a class full of high-end forwards, the prevailing thought was that the team would select one of the attackers to help their offensive game. However, there was also a dearth of talent on the right side of the defence, arguably the toughest position to fill in the NHL outside of goaltending. and that was the area Kent Hughes and his scouting team decided to target with the fifth overall selection, drafting David Reinbacher.
On paper, the pick was a bit off the board in terms of where the defenceman was projected to go relative to other prospects, but he was largely regarded as the top blue-liner available, reaching that point with a steady rise throughout his draft season.
Birthplace: Hohenems, Austria
Date of birth: October 25, 2004
Shoots: Right
Position: Defenceman
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 187 lbs.
Team: EHC Kloten (NL)
His initial projection was based on the defensive play that serves as the basis of his game. Like fellow Canadiens first-round pick Kaiden Guhle, he’s lauded for his shutdown abilities, using a combination of size and skating ability to keep up with attacking forwards and use his reach to break up plays. That solid play helped him become a key member of Kloten’s blue line this season, trusted with big minutes and finishing his draft year with a positive goal differential.
The defensive acumen known, it was the progress he made on offence that was responsible for his rise. He began the year as the prototypical modern “first-pass” defenceman who could skate and make decent transition plays, but added some offensive elements to his toolkit as the year went on. There’s no reason to expect that that growth will stop there, so the selection is one based on that offensive play comtinuing to grow.
Montreal in particular will be confident in its ability to bring that latent offensive talent to the surface given what Martin St-Louis, Stephane Robidas, and the development staff was able to do with the team’s corps of young defencemen in the latter half of the 2022-23 season. They saw in Reinbacher someone who fits in with the group of players they expect to build their future around, the likes of Guhle, Justin Barron, Jordan Harris, and Arber Xhekaj, and also complementing the more offensive style of play of prospects Logan Mailloux and Lane Hutson.
Montreal takes David Reinbacher with the 5th pick !!!!!! @CanadiensMTL
Best Dman out of Swiss NL since Josi. Not the same profile but will be a franchise cornerstone. pic.twitter.com/uj8EIWRDRn
— Thibaud Chatel (@Thibaud_Chatel) June 28, 2023
Reinbacher will continue to develop in the Swiss league next year, as he says aiming to continue progessing in his offfensive game and adding strength to become even better in his shutdown duties. There may not be a great deal of development left for him once that stint is over, and he can fine-tune his game through competing against top competition at the NHL level in a season or two, gradually working his way into more important minutes.
The potential for offensive improvement is the upside of this prospect, though there’s no guarantee that that development leads to a high level of NHL offence. If that doesn’t materialize, there’s still a ready-made defensive player to plug into the lineup. It’s difficult to pass on a player who can be regarded as both safe and with the potential to grow into a more impactful player, and at the very least a rebuilding Habs team has added another brick to the foundation.
