Watching Reinbacher play about 9-10 games now, this is my analysis.
Reinbacher‘s skating and vision are his strongest attributes. He uses his long reach coupled with his skating maneuvers (inside edge work is immaculate) to effectively close the gap on rushing forwards. He picks up loose pucks and uses his explosive straight line speed to lose the checker and creates a perfect crisp pass to his forwards.
His vision in the offensive zone is 9/10. He sees the ice efficiently well, though he does have a considerable amount of space playing in a bigger rink so it remains to be seen how well he’ll be able to handle the considerable clogging of passing lanes and board control from the point. He has a knack to puck watch a bit and can be caught flat footed due to being too complacent and waiting the puck to come to him rather than proactively trying to get it.
Defensively, he’s an 8.5/10. He uses his size exceptionally well to create separation and space, and he uses his very active stick and body positioning to make forwards move to the perimeter. However, a major flaw of his is that once the player walks down the line towards the outside, he has a tendency to chase and put himself out of position especially when the opposition plays a high tempo dump and chase overload system which surprisingly is apparent in more than a handful of Swiss league teams. His reaction time is sluggish in that he is great at using his reach to push play to the perimeter but lacks the anticipation to read what the forward will do after they’ve transitioned to the outside. He’s excellent at breaking up plays however, and again uses his reach to make decisive stick lifts and quick ups using the boards to clear the puck to safety.
His shot, passing ability, and his overall skill is 8/10. His shot being the best tool in his arsenal as he can hammer away shots from the point. His shots are very accurate and rarely gets blocked. At times however he’ll shoot very low percentage shots and would’ve been better off, again, using the boards to create pressure or use his exceptional hands and skating ability to create space for himself and move the puck around for a better chance. I would like to see him be more of a puck mover in this regard.
Positioning wise, he’s 9/10. Exceptional hockey IQ, knows when to jump up onto plays, back down on high risk plays, uses effective shoulder checks to scan ahead, and knows exactly where to be when backing up his forwards on puck retrievals in the defensive zone as well as behind the net/board position.
Altogether, in my view, he’s the unequivocal best defenseman in this draft, and really only has a few coachable flaws to his game. Stylistically, he reminds me of Pietrangelo.
A year in the AHL would absolute wonders for him.
