NL IceData’s Thibaud Chatel joins the podcast to discuss David Reinbacher. Thibaud does analytic work and player cards for the Swiss league and prospects that you can find on NL IceData.
We start by discussing Thibaud’s recent rankings that took some heat as Conor Bedard wasn’t ranked first. Thibaud got a chance to explain how he has built up his model and if it needs adjustment because Bedard finished third.
📊🏒 Throwing it to the wolves.
2023 NHL Draft top32 according to the model.
Lots more explanations in the coming days.Bedard not being 1st is a testimony of how historical Michkov's and Fantilli's seasons have been, playing in non-junior leagues. pic.twitter.com/jliD7ScH2m
— Thibaud Chatel (@Thibaud_Chatel) June 15, 2023
We continue to David Reinbacher, who has been discussed as a target for the Montreal Canadiens. The National League data expert tells us: “We track battles and retrieval as part of a coverage. It was not that good on winning puck battles and recovering pucks, but his team was struggling and he’s 18 years old and it is a tough league. The interesting part was that when he was recovering those pucks, the way you use them leading to control exit in his defensive zone, and manufacturing shots in the offensive zone, he was top 20% in the league,” pointing out some clear positives with Reinbacher.
While most people in the scouting world agrees that Rienbacher’s floor is very high, questions usually arise in regards to his ceiling and Thibaud Chatel has some interesting things to say about the defenders future development as well;
“I think the weird stuff with Reinbacher is that when you watch him, you have the impression that you’re watching the final product. It’s pretty rare to see a young man being so confident in his game, making so few mistakes with the puck. being able to see what is the best play to make, to improve the position of his team. And I guess that’s why we are wondering, is this the final product?”
Chatel uses Reinbacher’s play against Sweden, and Rasmus Sandin, as an example that the defender isn’t a finished product “It was a fair tackle obviously, but it was very impressive to see an 18 year old just deciding to cross the neutral zone, attack center as you should do if you’re a smart hockey player [and] just trying to split the defence. He just got caught by an NHL player.”
The questions all comes down to if would he draft Reinbacher if he was responsible for the Montreal draft.
“I’m not the draft expert, but I would be really excited to have him in Montreal because I really think you have a cornerstone in your defence for the next 10 to 15 years. You have the guy that’s gonna hit big minutes and bring you positive outcome in terms of puck possession pretty much every night. That’s the kind of elite, reliable guy you need to win a cup as well.”
In the end we do get to hear that Reinbacher has stated that he want to finish his studies in business/economics in Switzerland before taking the step over the Atlantic. It remains to be seen if that will impact Reinbacher’s stock come the draft.
You can follow Thibaud Chatel on Twitter, where he presents his own analytics from the National League, and you can listen to the full podcast in the player below:
