Pierre McGuire believes David Reinbacher should be in the AHL but do the Canadiens agree?

Pierre McGuire has been making plenty of statements about the Canadiens since starting his "The Eye Test" on The Sick Podcast network. He has largely been correct with most of his takes, and he seems determined that David Reinbacher shouldn't begin the year in the NHL. If the decision was up to McGuire, Reinbacher would spend the entire season with the Laval Rocket to learn the North American game.

Reinbacher, mostly because of the numbers game, will likely spend most of this season in Laval. However, a development at training camp made me raise an eyebrow of whether they're giving him a fair shot to make the team. The training camp groups and lines usually paint a picture of how the front office is thinking, and on Saturday, Reinbacher was playing with Mike Matheson.

Matheson is a good role model for Reinbacher to learn from in training camp, which could be the answer for they had them alongside each other. Reinbacher has been playing most of training camp with Adam Engstrom, which feels like the future No. 1 defense pair in Laval. I was ready to write the Matheson-Reinbacher experiment off as a learning moment for Reinbacher, but then I saw these comments from Martin St. Louis.

“He’s (David Reinbacher) very calm for a young kid. Even if he makes a mistake, he comes back and doesn’t turn that into 2, 3, 4 mistakes. He corrects himself pretty quick. Hockey’s a game of mistakes, you’re gonna make some but that’s okay, you move on. I like his first pass. I like the way he plays off the puck with his D-partner. He’s very engaged…To have a good first pass, you need to gather information all the time…He processes the game really well. For a young guy at that position, I don’t think it’s the norm.”

Does this sound like a head coach who will be eager to send Reinbacher down to the AHL? St. Louis' beliefs about Reinbacher's ability to rebound from mistakes seems like a good quality for a rookie defenseman to have. If St. Louis thinks Reinbacher will be able to maintain that mindset, he's going to fight hard to keep him in Montreal. It'll take some convincing and a lateral trade to make room, but don't be surprised if Reinbacher is still fighting at the end of training camp.