David Reinbacher’s development worries Mathias Brunet (and rightly so)

Marc-Olivier Cook
David Reinbacher’s development worries Mathias Brunet (and rightly so)
Credit: YouTube

David Reinbacher was selected with the 5th overall pick in 2023.

There are always high expectations with players drafted this high. And that's to be expected.

But… right now, David Reinbacher is having trouble meeting those expectations. He's only played 51 games in North America since being drafted, and while he's shown flashes of brilliance here and there, it's not perfect.

Mathias Brunet and Simon Boisvert talked about it in a recent episode of their podcast: right now, Reinbacher's development is “worrying.”

The La Presse journalist doesn't currently see him as a guy who's going to come and help the big club at some point, and he's right. Reinbacher is capable of doing great things on the ice… but you'd expect more from a guy who was selected with the fifth pick in the draft.

Are expectations simply too high for the defenseman?

Maybe that's the problem.

But the general observation won't change about Reinbacher because there are guys drafted after him who are already showing great things in the NHL. Matvei Michkov, Ryan Leonard, Dalibor Dvorsky, Zachary Benson…

The Habs drafted David Reinbacher because they needed him on the right side of defense. The organization saw the Austrian as a guy with the potential to play on the top-4 because of his size and more conservative style, but we still seem to be light years away from seeing that in Montreal.

The youngster needs to take a step forward before that happens. But can we really blame him, given that he hasn't played much in recent years due to (several) injuries?

There's that too, which shouldn't be overlooked in the case of David Reinbacher. But it's also true that, at the moment, everyone would like to see more from him.

He's still young at 21, but he has to start showing more encouraging signs too…


Overtime

– It's crazy.

– That's a good one.

– The real deal!

– Well done.

– I'll take Kaprizov and Hutson. You?

– Nice moment.

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