The National League relegation series has been cancelled due to the fact that neither of the teams playing for the Swiss League trophy applied for promotion. You have to have the financial backing to participate at the higher level without sacrificing the future and facing a potential bankruptcy, and there was also the potential for a parent team and farm club playing in the same league. David Reinbacher’s season has therefore come to an end, and there is an option for him to join the Laval Rocket in the American Hockey League.
Looking at things on the surface level, the season could be described as atrocious for Kloten. One has to look at the end of last season and the decision to appoint former coach Larry Mitchell to general manager. Mitchell then signed former Montreal Canadien Gerry Fleming as a coach, a signing that still confuses me for a few reasons. This was the first mistake that impacted Kloten, and Reinbacher’s development, in a bad way.
Fleming arrived from Löwen Frankfurt, a team that finished 10th in the Deutsche Eishockey League with Fleming as head coach, and the DEL is a far step behind the European top leagues like the SHL and NL. To expect him to do better in a much more competitive league, on a team with a lower budget than most other teams in the National League, was an unreasonable ask from the new GM.
Fleming came in with a completely new defensive system where Kloten aimed to play man-to-man coverage all over the defensive zone, something players weren’t used to. I put this in front of Mitchell’s door as well. He must have been aware of this when he signed his replacement behind the bench.
In December, Kloten fired Fleming, and Mitchell stepped into the coaching role while looking for another replacement. Two different sources tell me at least one big-name coach turned the chance down, and at the end of January, Stefan Mair was appointed, a coach who had never coached at such a level before, and with a man-to-man defensive setup as well.
Reinbacher was injured in October and sat out a few weeks. The original report was a knee injury, but other sources close to Kloten also told me that the radial bone in his arm had a small fracture. Both these injuries hampered the development in their own way. The radius injury was evident in how Reinbacher handled the puck upon his return to the game. He looked as if his wrist was stiff at times and the puck-handling wasn’t as natural for two to three weeks.
Neither of these situations are Reinbacher’s or the National League’s fault. Personally, I think that staying in Switzerland was the right move. He wanted to finish school with his friends in Switzerland, and it also gave him a chance to stay out of the spotlight, become more comfortable with his English, and play top-pairing minutes on the National League team.
Looking at the general stats; 11 points (1G, 10A) in 35 games don’t sound like a lot. However, as Nathan Ni points out in a comment, he led his team’s defencemen in scoring as a 19-year-old while missing 17 games. This makes Reinbacher’s stats more impressive, especially considering his injury break.
Thibaud Chatel of NLIceData wrote up a good analysis of Reinbacher’s European season.
Table from NLIceData.com
Reinbacher has improved across the board, with the exception of high-danger passes, and that could be down to him having few options to pass to in that area of the ice.
Strengths
Reinbacher’s play is based on his puck-retrievals and clean and controlled zone breakouts. He has the vision and the stick-handling to play that style, and the latter improved this season due to a better balance and stronger physique.
I would also say that he had to adapt to different playstyles, being paired with a few different defencemen during this season, and did so impressively. While he worked best with his old partner Steve Kellenberger, I was especially impressed with him being the responsible one when paired with Nathan Beaulieu. In both pairings, Reinbacher played a highly intelligent defensive game, covering areas of the ice which normally shouldn’t have been his to cover.
As shown in the table, his offensive numbers have taken a dive, but looking at the goal/assist ratio it is what is to be expected, Reinbacher’s strength on the offensive side of the puck is the pass and getting pucks to the net for rebounds and tip-ins, but chances for that were few and far between.
His physical play has taken a step forward. While he doesn’t show the big hits like Alexander Romanov used to, Reinbacher does it in his own understated way. All the small things that he does well — gap control, stick-handling, and positioning — have been improved by his overall physical development.
Weaknesses
One would always point to the offence as a weakness in Reinbacher’s game, especially after a season like this. However, it is unrealistic to expect a player like Cale Makar, Adam Fox, or even Rasmus Dahlin. It is at the other end that Reinbacher’s true strength lies. It will be interesting to see what he can do with better surroundings though. I expect him to perform a lot better offensively in the AHL than he did in Kloten.
Grade: B+
While It certainly looks like Reinbacher’s development plateaued, a lot of it has to do with Kloten’s season in general. Looking at the stats provided by Mr. Chatel, the only area of his game where he has a negative comparison to last year is passes to high-danger areas, from the 78th percentile to the 58th. This while being on the worst offensive team in the National League this season.
He has developed in the defensive aspect of the game. He is stronger along the boards, and the added weight hasn’t impacted his balance like it did with Jesperi Kotkaniemi. He uses that balance to pin attackers while still being able to work with arms and stick to get the puck out. While he has always had a long reach with his frame and stick, the added balance has made him into a zone-entry-denial machine. His gap control is good, and he has learned to anticipate a move rather that being an impetuous youngling who overcommits.
The one thing that makes it a bit negative for me is that Reinbacher has looked nonchalant at times. It might just have been that he was tired because of the relentless pressure situation that he was in. That makes it understandable, but it does stand out in my memory even though a couple of weeks have passed.
One could argue that he should have been in the AHL all season, especially considering how this season’s dice have fallen, but the discussion would probably have been about why he wasn’t in the NHL rather than the AHL instead.
Hindsight is a beautiful thing, but there is no need to second guess the development right now. Mr. Chatel’s tables and charts show that Reinbacher has progressed in many areas of his game, even with injuries that could have happened in any league. In the end, this season has provided adversity, which has helped a young man develop further.
Could the development have been bigger? Yes. Is that due to his own limitations? No. Therefore, the grade is a B+. It has been a season of individual progress, perhaps not as great as one had expected, but there are mitigating factors to explain them.
Patrik Bexell and Thibaud Chatel discuss Reinbacher’s season and assignment to the Laval Rocket.
