5-6 offers for the 5th pick: none worth David Reinbacher in the eyes of the CH

For the past few days, the possibility of the Habs trading their fifth pick to move down in the draft had been increasingly discussed. After all, the club didn’t seem to want Matvei Michkov, and with the top-4 seemingly set in stone (Connor Bedard, Adam Fantilli, Leo Carlsson and Will Smith), moving down to pick up more than one prospect seemed a logical avenue.

But in the end, the Tricolore kept their fifth pick and used it to draft defenseman David Reinbacher. In Kent Hughes’ eyes, he was the best prospect available (but who knows if he would have been if he’d been left-handed).

Now, clearly, the Tricolore likes the youngster. In fact, even if he didn’t trade his pick, that doesn’t mean he didn’t have good offers on the table.

In fact, according to Kent Hughes, no fewer than five or six teams called the Tricolore to acquire the pick. However, in his eyes, none of the offers were worth Reinbacher, whom the team’s scouts really wanted to draft.

And what scared the club was that some of the clubs that wanted to move up in the draft wanted to do so for Reinbacher, and that they were almost certain he wouldn’t be available after the sixth pick, whereas the Coyotes really seemed to want a defenseman (they drafted Dmitri Simashev immediately after Reinbacher).

At the CH, we really like Reinbacher, who we see as a future first-pair defenseman capable of playing big minutes(and whose potential is judged to be among the highest of the current crop of prospects). And clearly, the youngster’s attitude has impressed the club, as he came to the table after his selection saying he couldn’t wait to put on his work boots and win the Stanley Cup.

The more you listen to him talk, the more you discover a mature young man.

Clearly, the idea of drafting a potential top-tier right-handed defenseman was more than appealing to the Habs tonight. Would he have gotten more value by accepting an offer to move down in the draft? Maybe, but not in the eyes of Kent Hughes.

It remains to be seen whether the future will prove him right.

Extension

Kent Hughes also admitted that he tried to move up in the draft (and I want to believe he was aiming for Will Smith), but the four teams ahead of him wouldn’t trade their picks.

So he settled for the fifth pick, with which he got his hands on his target in Reinbacher.