The Montreal Canadiens announced that defenceman David Reinbacher will miss four weeks with a broken metacarpal bone, suffered in Thursday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The injury is the latest blow for Reinbacher, who has struggled to stay healthy since being the fifth overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft. The good news is that this is a relatively straightforward recovery process and shouldn’t have any lingering effects.
The issue is that Reinbacher needs to play games. He missed almost all of last season, supposed to be his first full season in North America with a knee injury also suffered in the pre-season. The AHL season starts on October 12, meaning that he will likely miss around two weeks of the season.
For the Canadiens, they should have the depth to withstand this. This is now three AHL defenders who have suffered injuries, with Reinbacher joining William Trudeau and Joshua Jacobs. Noah Dobson also left Thursday’s game with an injury that is not considered serious, while Kaiden Guhle was held out of the game for maintenance reasons, per the team.
Reinbacher played 10 regular season games and 13 playoff games with the Rocket last season. He will look to boost those totals upon his return.
