For the month of May, aside from the NHL Draft lottery, there isn’t much going on. So here at A Winning Habit, I’ve decided to rank the 24 best Canadiens under 24 years old. I opted to rank players that are closest to the NHL, so aside from David Reinbacher, there are no 2023 Draftees.
So, without further ado, let’s go ahead with the 10th best player, in my opinion, David Reinbacher.
David Reinbacher has yet to make his NHL debut and I'm not betting man, but I would think that we will need to wait until the end of the 2024-25 season for that to happen. With a crowded blueline in Montreal and Logan Mailloux slightly ahead of Reinbacher on the depth chart, he would need to be especially impressive at training camp in late September to etch out a spot.
But it isn't out of the realm of possibility, one notch in Reinbacher's belt above Mailloux's is that Reinbacher has been playing professionally for two years, after one year in the Swiss second-tier league. Mailloux just finished his first professional season and while his offensive game is strong, defensively he still needs to iron some things out. Reinbacher focused primarily on his defensive game while playing with EHC Kloten in the Swiss NL, so his defensive game may be a little bit ahead of Mailloux's.
I could be talking for nothing, one offseason is a lot of time for a player to improve and prepare, especially considering that the right side of the Canadiens blueline is lacking compared to the left. Reinbacher knows that and so too does Mailloux, so there is a solid chance that one of them gets a taste of NHL action. Based on the fact that Mailloux has one season in the AHL and Reinbacher played a handful of games with Laval, I have Mailloux ahead of Reinbacher on my U24 list, but Reinbacher was a consensus top-five pick for a reason.
Reinbacher comes in as the 10th-ranked Under 24 player and there is very good reason to believe that he elevates himself to the top five by this time next year. In just a short AHL stint, he showed that he can produce offence and with more time, he will show what he is capable of. With some added weight and more reps on the smaller North American ice to adjust, I expect he will be one of the AHL's best defenders before the 2024-25 season ends.