With the 2024 Trade Deadline having passed with little action from the Montreal Canadiens, and the team highly unlikely to make a late-season playoff push sitting at 24-30-10, fans may begin to look towards the off-season, next season, and beyond. Chances are high that the team will have yet again another high draft pick that will surely entice the fanbase. Given the tempered expectations surrounding their final 18 regular season games, the Canadiens will seek to continue the development of their prospects, such as the much-anticipated arrival of Lane Hutson, and the possibility of David Reinbacher coming to North America following the end of his season with Kloten HC in the Swiss-A league.
Related: Canadiens 2023 NHL Draft Pick: David Reinbacher
Reinbacher, still just 19, was notably drafted fifth overall in 2023 ahead of bigger names such as Russian goal-scoring machine (a phrase reminiscent of a certain Washington Capitals forward) Matvei Michkov, or the Boston College-committed Ryan Leonard. Nonetheless, general manager Kent Hughes and company selected Reinbacher to the dismay of many fans.
The Austrian defenceman posted an impressive 22 points in 46 games and was the second-highest-scoring defenceman on his team. However, with the continued emergence of top-prospect Hutson, and an impressive rookie season with the Laval Rocket for Logan Mailloux, among many other young prospects, he has seen significantly less media and fanbase attention than many other up-and-coming prospects. His production has not only stagnated, it has nearly halved from his 2022-23 production, though Kloten HC is a much worse team in 2023-24. They finished the regular season with an abhorrent 12 regulation wins, five overtime wins, six overtime losses, and a whopping 29 regulation losses. They will play Ajoie, the only team to finish behind them, for relegation beginning on March 16.
Positives & Upside
Reinbacher actually leads all Kloten defencemen in points, despite having just 11 (including a lone goal) in 35 games this season. Recently, he had been receiving the most ice time among defencemen and had been often paired with former NHLer Nathan Beaulieu. Given Kloten scored a measly 107 goals during the regular season (2.06 goals-per-game), the 19-year-old’s offensive struggles cannot be entirely attributed to himself — he has simply been in a tough situation all season, playing on a bottom-feeder club that struggled immensely to score goals. He had been held pointless across the team’s final 10 games, where they won just twice and were shut out an astounding five times. Prior to his team’s end-of-season slump, his production (0.46 points-per-game) was nearly on pace with his draft year production (0.48 points-per-game), despite playing on a Kloten team that won only half the amount of games they did the season before.
With Reinbacher’s help, the Canadiens jumped up one spot from 11th in 2023, to 10th this season on The Athletic‘s prospect pool rankings — where he ranks only behind Hutson (from ‘Montreal Canadiens are No. 10 in 2024 NHL prospect pool rankings’, The Athletic, 2/21/24).
Benefit of the Doubt
Reinbacher’s club has somehow gone through three different head coaches this season. The constant coaching changes, in addition to the extremely poor roster, should be telling signs for the fanbase to be patient with the young prospect. Evidently, management has taken a patient approach, opting to send him back to Kloten for further development and experience. Playing a pivotal role (being on a weak hockey team aside) against players much older than him rather than having him play against junior-aged players gives Reinbacher extremely beneficial experience and growth he would not receive otherwise.
Related: Expectations for the Canadiens’ Final 20 Games
In addition to the aforementioned factors limiting his 2023-24 season production, comparisons to current NHL defencemen who had a similar trajectory should be observed. Obviously, fans shouldn’t expect Reinbacher to become a Roman Josi-level defenceman in the NHL, but it is worth mentioning that Josi scored just eight points in 35 games in the same Swiss-A league in his draft year. The following season, however, he increased his production to 24 points on a contending Bern SC squad. His draft-plus-one-season production was extremely similar to Reinbacher’s draft-year production. Again, fans should temper expectations here, but this does highlight the variance and different development paths certain players take, especially when playing overseas.
Where Reinbacher Fits Moving Forward
Reinbacher was touted as the most NHL-ready defenceman in the 2023 Draft and was lauded for his simple and effective playing style and his elevated defensive IQ — two extremely important qualities in a defenceman who was already being appraised as the most NHL-ready. It’s also no secret that the Canadiens have a logjam of young left-shooting defencemen, with the likes of Mike Matheson, Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj, Jayden Struble, and Jordan Harris already on their current roster. Prospects such as Hutson and Adam Engstrom will also look to compete for a roster spot among said logjam. However, the contrary can be said for right-shooting defencemen, as the Habs currently have only David Savard and Johnathan Kovacevic on the right side (Chris Wideman is on long-term injured reserve and Justin Barron is in the American Hockey League – AHL).
Ideally, Reinbacher slots into the vacant first-pairing spot on the right side (lately occupied by left-shooting Guhle alongside Matheson). The more offensively-inclined Mailloux may be looking to compete for the role, though realistically, both defencemen are a few seasons away from becoming true top-pairing rearguards (should they develop accordingly). When Reinbacher makes his likely move to North America following Kloten’s relegation series, he will almost certainly begin with the Laval Rocket as they look to make a push for the AHL playoffs. They sit one game over .500 and three points back of third place in the North Division.
Surely Reinbacher will be excited to join a competing squad for the first time this season when the time comes, but fans should also be excited for the young defender to make an impact for Kloten in their relegation series, playing another weak team. He will continue to see power play opportunities and significant ice time. He will most likely make his North American debut shortly thereafter, and depending on his performance and how he adjusts to the North American playing style, perhaps look to compete for a roster spot on the Canadiens in 2024-25.
