David Reinbacher
19y, EHC Kloten, NL, Switzerland
As Kloten’s old/new coach, and the current manager, coached this week’s games, it looked better for Reinbacher in many ways. The team came back from 2-0 and 3-1 down on Friday night facing top team Fribourg-Gottéron. The Montréal Canadiens prospect played just over 21 minutes, having both power play and penalty kill time. While he started the game together with his usual partner, Steve Kellenberger, he received quite a few shifts with former Canadiens blue-liner Nathan Beaulieu. At the end of the game, as Fribourg-Gottéron pushed for an equalizer, Reinbacher sprung Simic for a breakaway goal, the final goal of the game.
Kloten played Davos, in the actual Cathedral of Hockey, in the second game of the week and managed to get back into the game from a two-goal deficit once more, tying the game with an extra attacker on the ice. Reinbacher was on the ice for the equalizer and was involved in the play, but not enough to get an assist. He played just shy of 19 minutes, but was used extensively on the power play (largely due to the five-minute major that a Davos player took), and a little less while short-handed.
Reinbacher is really getting a workout and playing a lot of good minutes in a very good league. He transports the puck well and has good exit passes, but looks a little bit fatigued toward the end of shifts that finish in the offensive zone. With this in mind, I like that he stayed in the (Swiss) National League as there is less travel and more recovery time, which should mean more time for training.
The old/new coaching regime hasn’t impacted Reinbacher in a negative way. Instead, he got a chance to play on the first power-play unit, which bodes well for future development.
Vinzenz Rohrer
19y, ZSC Lions, NL, Switzerland
Rohrer was back this week playing around 15 minutes in both games. He got a Brendan Gallagher goal in his first game back.
Marc Crawford, Zürich’s coach, plays Rohrer in a pure five-on-five role, and while Rohrer isn’t getting a lot of headlines it is really impressive the way he goes all-in and earns those minutes in a pro league.
This also shows that you need to trust other teams to develop players for you, in Junior hockey or in Europe, as there wouldn’t have been enough spots in Laval for everyone and especially not earning the same kind of minutes.
Adam Engström
20y, Rögle BK, SHL, Sweden
Engström was on the ice for two goals against in Thursday’s game, however both were goalie errors from the normally stable Petr Kvaca. Kvaca had to leave the ice later in the game due to a collision with Engström as both tried to stop a breakaway.
Engström keeps telling Eyes On The Prize that he isn’t worried about his lack of scoring touch this season, but at one point it has to start eating its way into the confidence of the young Swede. In Sunday’s derby against Malmö, Engström had a couple of chances that he would have scored on if he already had some goals in his backpack this season.
With Ekeståhl-Johnsson out of the lineup, it was up to Engström to run the first power-play unit, and he scored his first point in the game on said power play.
He played a stable, secure game and managed to chip in with another assist in the third period.
Filip Eriksson
18y, Växjö Lakers, SHL, Sweden
In some ways, Rohrer and Eriksson are the forgotten prospects, as Reinbacher and Engström are grabbing the headlines from the respective leagues, but they are both putting together some very strong seasons in the background.
Växjö is sitting second in the table, and Eriksson has played 19 games for the team, averaging around 10 minutes. He isn’t flashy, he doesn’t score points with ease, but again much in the same way as Rohrer, he is learning to be a professional and he is doing it at a very high level of competition. It helps that Växjö plays a structured game, and had the refs on their side in the game against Frölunda this week, but a lot of us expected Eriksson to see minutes in the U20s or going on a loan to a team in HockeyAllsvenskan, but he has stayed with Växjö. That is a vote of confidence from a coach who is in line to win three titles this year.
Oliver Kapanen
20y, KalPa, Liiga, Finland
KalPa released a statement that Kapanen will be out until Christmas earlier this week. As KalPa doesn’t play any games over the Christmas period, it could easily be that Kapanen will be out for the whole of December. I have no news of the type of injury that has sidelined him.
Credit: KalPa.fi
Petteri Nurmi
21y, HPK, Liiga, Finland
After a dip in usage, Nurmi has started to eat minutes for HPK, earning almost 19 per game last week. He is still not getting any offence to speak about, however he is stopping the bleeding in his own end. I am still unsure if the Canadiens will use a contract on him come end of the season, as I have mentioned before I think the first step would be if he can make an impact on a better team if he is traded toward the deadline.
Bogdan Konyushkov
20y, Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod, KHL, Russia
Konyushkov continues his offensive output, however his defensive mistakes are also there. He is being boxed out of his own crease due to his stature, and he uses his stick a bit too much to cover for it. He also looked a bit slow on his skates and was drawn out of position at times, struggling to recover due to the aforementioned skating issue.
He is fun to watch though, as I have said earlier. He reminds me a lot of Mattias Norlinder in both the good and bad. The confidence in slowing down to pick the corner on the power play is an example of the good.
He is getting a lot of ice time, almost 23 minutes a game, but it is hard to judge his development as a lot of players have left the KHL.
Yevgeni Volokhin
18y, Mamonty Yugry, MHL, Russia
Volokhin is such an interesting prospect, however Junior leagues combined with ‘goalies are voodoo’ make it tough to really predict his development. Especially as he fights with a younger player who is equally good for the chance to play. The good thing is that Volokhin is getting a few more starts, but they are relatively equal stat-wise.
Credit: engmhl.khl.ru
It is an interesting comparison as both of them are on the same team and both of them were picked in the 2023 NHL Draft, two rounds apart.
Mamonty Yugry leads their division by a good margin, so they have the opportunity to keep rotating the goalies and we might get a better chance to see who the team think is the better goalie come playoff time.
Alexander Gordin
22y, Ryazan-VDV, VHL, Russia
A three-point week for Gordin, one goal and two assists.
Dmitri Kostenko
21y, Khimik Voskresensk, VHL, Russia
No games for Kostenko for the last two weeks.
