David Reinbacher: the Habs used videos of Shea Weber to help him out

In 2023-24, David Reinbacher didn’t have an easy season. The defenseman, freshly drafted fifth overall by the Habs, found himself on a bad team in Switzerland, a team that had three coaches in one season.

The club wasn’t performing… and there was no stability. It wasn’t in ideal conditions to develop, let’s say.

Obviously, in Montreal, this was something that got a lot of attention. The Habs wanted their kid to develop under the right conditions, but it was laborious…

And it showed in his play on the ice.

That’s one of the reasons why, at the end of November, Rob Ramage went to Europe to see Reinbacher and have a chat with him. And to help him improve his game, he showed him videos of Shea Weber.

That’s what Stu Cowan reported in a recent Montreal Gazette article.

Rob Ramage, the Habs director of player development, went to visit David Reinbacher in Kloten last season & showed him clips of Shea Weber to help refine his game.

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– /r/Habs (@HabsOnReddit) July 18, 2024

Ramage explains that at this point, things were really going badly for Reinbacher and his team. The youngster couldn’t find his rhythm, and he seemed to have lost his composure on the ice. He was starting to get “stuck in his head”, basically.

So he wanted to try and find a way to help him, and by having him watch Weber videos, he wanted to help him regain his composure on the ice.

Ramage believes this helped, as Reinbacher gradually improved in Europe before coming to Laval for a fine end to the season.

We know that Reinbacher is one of the team’s top prospects, so it’s not surprising that the Habs wanted to intervene to “protect their investment”. That said, it’s something he won’t necessarily have the chance to do with Ivan Demidov next year if he plays in Russia.

I like to see that the Habs were proactive in Reinbacher’s case, though, and we’ll see if the youngster was able to integrate certain aspects of Weber’s game into his own.

And even if he only incorporates the confidence and composure of the former Habs captain into his game, it’ll already be a good step forward.