Why David Reinbacher Needed a Taste of North America

The Montreal Canadiens' first-round pick in 2023 got to see how different things are over here at the Buffalo Prospect Challenge.

When it was announced that defenseman David Reinbacher would be playing for the Montreal Canadiens' team at the Buffalo Prospects Challenge, some Habs fans questioned the decision. After all, Reinbacher could have been back in Switzerland with his club team Kloten, where the season has already began, playing against men again.

But watching the fifth overall pick in the 2023 draft suit up for Montreal's kids in a marquee matchup against the hometown Sabres prospects on Friday put it all into perspective. Yes, Reinbacher has some tremendous tools, but he also needed to see what the North American game was all about.

"It's very important," said coach J-F Houle, who also leads AHL Laval behind the bench. "It's good for him to get to know the level of play. I thought he had a decent game; he's a big boy who can skate and he made some decent plays out there. It gives him a little bit of experience of pro hockey down here. For all the kids it's good to have games like this."

The Sabres kids blitzed Montreal 6-3 in that first game, with Matt Savoie doing a particular amount of damage offensively. Defensively, the Canadiens didn't look very sharp and big names such as Reinbacher and Logan Mailloux definitely shared some of the blame in that category.

But there are a number of caveats here, for Reinbacher in particular: First, it was everybody's first real action of the season. Second, it was his first time playing a real North American game. Yes, Reinbacher had played on the smaller North American ice at the world juniors in Halifax and Moncton, but he was on an outgunned Austria squad that rarely had the puck - and if you don't have the puck, then you don't really have to deal with a forecheck.

Reinbacher was knocked on his backside a couple of times in that Buffalo game but, again: He needed to see what the game is like over here.

"It was hard for sure," he said. "It's smaller (ice) here and more skilled. The guys wanted to show they're the right kids out there. I just tried to act normal, do my thing as always. I liked the experience."

The speed of the game was something else Reinbacher was able to get a handle on and quicker decision-making is something a lot of Europeans have to adjust to over here. On the positive side of the ledger, it's quite obvious that Reinbacher does indeed have the skating acumen to be an effective two-way blueliner in the future and his shot is pretty solid too. His frame is big and once he gets stronger, he'll be tough to deal with. In the meantime he took his lumps, but he wasn't surprised by the physicality of the game.

"They go hard, they're going for a job," Reinbacher said. "It's not like hockey on a Sunday, out there on Easter."

The youngster did admit to being nervous before the Buffalo game, which is pretty understandable given the franchise he was representing.

"It's a huge honor for me to put on the Habs jersey," he said. "For sure you're nervous, but it goes away pretty quick."

The assumption is that Reinbacher will return to Kloten this season and given how young the Montreal blueline was last year, it makes the most sense to allow him to develop in a comfortable situation in a European league that offers some pretty decent competition.

But the lessons he can take from his brief sojourn in Buffalo will be crucial. Reinbacher noted that he will need to make time for himself in small areas of the ice once he comes over here again and undoubtedly he will keep some of the other subtleties in mind as he plays this season. The Habs had a bunch of big guns in the crowd on Friday, including GM Kent Hughes, executive VP of hockey operations Jeff Gorton, coach Marty St-Louis and special advisor Vincent Lecavalier. It's always good to get a look at your latest top pick in a new setting, but it was also great for Reinbacher to get his first taste of life over here.