D David Reinbacher - EHC Kloten, NL (2023, 5th, MTL)

[SlafySZN]

There is a reason for Steve Yzerman and his chefscout Kris Draper to make the long journey to Austria only to scout Reinbacher in the game Czechia vs. Austria.

There have been countless NHL scouts to Switzerland only to watch Reinbacher play. It started in November 2022 when scouts of the Washington Capitals, the Montreal canadians and the Vancouver Canucks were in Switzerland.

Shane Malloy, well known for his masterpiece the art of scouting has been repeatedly mentioning that a future Top 4 is more valuable to any NHL team that a top 6 forward. When you look at the results of the last two years it should be clear to everybody that some teams take a big swing to get high-end talent on the blueline.

No major scouting service had Korcinski in the top 10. No a single one, but Chicago they had the balls to draft Korcinski at #6.

Freimüller who served as a european scout for the atlanta trashers and looking back at 25+ years of scouting experience has Reinbacher in the same tier as Simon Nemec (2nd overall in 2022) and David Jiricek (sixth overall 2022). He said that Reinbacher has the potential to become a No. 2 defenceman in the NHL.

again, as GM of an NHL team you pick such a prospect like Reinbacher ahead of almost any winger in this years draft. Only Michkov should be taken ahead of Reinbacher. There was a report couple weeks ago saying that the Montreal Canadians are very interested in Reinbacher.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Habs select him at #5.
If they don't Stevie Yzerman will hit gold again picking Reinbacher at #9.

It's always the same story: the North American guys hype their prospects and the European prospects don't get the credit they deserve. Who was giving credit and respect to Elias Pettersson? Who was giving credit to Moritz Seider?
Seider would go 1st overall in any re-draft. I remember well, how all the north american guys raved about Bowen Byram. Laugh my ass off. Just look where bowen Byram is today in comparision to Seider.
Time for the north american guys to take a hard look in the mirror and question their ability to make unbiased assessments.

It was an article saying the habs were scouting and were interested in him during the year. Doesn’t mean they would take him at #5 now that they know where they draft.

There were similar rumblings about them really liking Leonard.

I believe this after reading those scouting reports, sounds like people who never watched the guy play. Sounds made up

Why would they lie, though? lol they just don’t see something incredible in him it’s ok.

Plus everyone of them said they probably would take him around 10-15th overall… and he is 10th on Mckenzie’s list. Their opinion match that scenario.

 

[Hinterland]

It was an article saying the habs were scouting and were interested in him during the year. Doesn’t mean they would take him at #5 now that they know where they draft.

There were similar rumblings about them really liking Leonard.


Why would they lie, though? lol they just don’t see something incredible in him it’s ok.

Plus everyone of them said they probably would take him around 10-15th overall… and he is 10th on Mckenzie’s list. Their opinion match that scenario.

How likely do you think it is two out of four NHL scouts would give you the exact same false info about a top prospect of the soo upcoming draft? What's the likelyhood of that happening? Doesn't sound suspicious to you?

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

How likely do you think it is two out of four NHL scouts would give you the exact same false info about a top prospect of the soo upcoming draft? What's the likelyhood of that happening? Doesn't sound suspicious to you?

Sounds like it wouldn’t be a stretch to say you don’t like the Athletic? I think we get it.

 

[OilersFanatics505]

How likely do you think it is two out of four NHL scouts would give you the exact same false info about a top prospect of the soo upcoming draft? What's the likelyhood of that happening? Doesn't sound suspicious to you?

Bro, not everything is espionage in tin foil hat land

 

[majormajor]

How likely do you think it is two out of four NHL scouts would give you the exact same false info about a top prospect of the soo upcoming draft? What's the likelyhood of that happening? Doesn't sound suspicious to you?

I don't think they're fakes, but it is possible that they're just scout friends of Wheeler or Pronman who happen to be in the same uninformed thought bubble. It wouldn't be the first time some NA scouts were exposed for not knowing what they're talking about with Euro prospects.

 

[jfrank21]

I never said he won’t or shouldn’t be taken 6th-10th. I took issue with someone saying that it “hilarious” to call him a reach at five. My post was simply to refute that claim by offering a list compiled from a 10 NHL scout poll and survey responses from another 4 NHL scouts that all indicate he would be a “reach” at 5th. And therefore, it’s not a “hilarious” opinion.

I haven’t offered my own opinion. People are struggling with that. It’s because I called the crazy guy a crazy guy when he said that Thomas Drance and Bob McKenzie are lying about surveying scouts. Somehow people thought that meant I was mad at him for disagreeing with me about something. I never even gave an opinion on Reinbacher.

I mean, to be fair, you keep saying that he lumped McKenzie in with his criticism of Drance's sources, and he didnt. And he also correctly pointed out that those two scouts were entirely wrong in their descriptions of Reinbacher. You got awfully spun up that he questioned the legitimacy of those sources and havent let it go. I pay for the Athletic and they do recycle a lot of material in their articles, so it wouldnt surprise me if they pad their scout quotes a little as well. It's not worth flipping out over though.

 

[Hinterland]

I mean, to be fair, you keep saying that he lumped McKenzie in with his criticism of Drance's sources, and he didnt. And he also correctly pointed out that those two scouts were entirely wrong in their descriptions of Reinbacher. You got awfully spun up that he questioned the legitimacy of those sources and havent let it go. I pay for the Athletic and they do recycle a lot of material in their articles, so it wouldnt surprise me if they pad their scout quotes a little as well. It's not worth flipping out over though.

True. I'd never say a bad word about McKenzie. His final ranking is one of the most accurate list year after year which wouldn't be possible without actual connections.

What I did say (in other threads) is that I believe his network could be a little thin on European scouts, especially when it comes to leagues outside of FIN and SWE. So what I noticed is that his earlier list are often pretty wrong about players from non traditional markets or players playing in lesser scouted leagues not many get drafted out of. McTavish was a good example. Which is completely fine and no knock on McKenzie since his final list is usually close even in those cases. I just mentioned it to give context when talking about early list.

So in his defense, maybe rt was confusing something when he accused me of shitting on McKenzie.

Re the athletic I think it's extremely unlikely two out of four scouts would give you the same false info. I'm not a scout, I just watch kids in their draft year and check on their stats from time to time. I'm not a huge numbers guy so I couldn't give you exact numbers from any of those kids but I'm also fairly confident I could tell if I read something completely wrong (like the other way around as in this case) about any of the 1st round candidates.

So what I wanna say is even if they find two grade a moron NHL scouts it's unlikely they'd give you the exact false info without even questioning it. And even if, this still shouldn't get past your editors if you ask your customers to commit to subscriptions for your content. This would never get published by say TSN or sportsnet. So for me, the athletic very much remains a scam but I apologize if I offended anyone by calling them out for their shit.

 

[majormajor]

Re the athletic I think it's extremely unlikely two out of four scouts would give you the same false info. I'm not a scout, I just watch kids in their draft year and check on their stats from time to time. I'm not a huge numbers guy so I couldn't give you exact numbers from any of those kids but I'm also fairly confident I could tell if I read something completely wrong (like the other way around as in this case) about any of the 1st round candidates.

So what I wanna say is even if they find two grade a moron NHL scouts it's unlikely they'd give you the exact false info without even questioning it. And even if, this still shouldn't get past your editors if you ask your customers to commit to subscriptions for your content. This would never get published by say TSN or sportsnet. So for me, the athletic very much remains a scam but I apologize if I offended anyone by calling them out for their shit.

I think what you're missing is that scouts are friends with other scouts. So if scout two tells his friend scout four some bad info, it's not unlikely that both will start repeating it.

 

[WeThreeKings]

It was an article saying the habs were scouting and were interested in him during the year. Doesn’t mean they would take him at #5 now that they know where they draft.

There were similar rumblings about them really liking Leonard.


Why would they lie, though? lol they just don’t see something incredible in him it’s ok.

Plus everyone of them said they probably would take him around 10-15th overall… and he is 10th on Mckenzie’s list. Their opinion match that scenario.

To be fair.. the information on the Habs liking Reinbacher comes from a more credible source than Montreal Hockey Now saying the Habs love Leonard.

 

[SlafySZN]

To be fair.. the information on the Habs liking Reinbacher comes from a more credible source than Montreal Hockey Now saying the Habs love Leonard.

I meant it more in a way that there’s of course infos about players they like. That doesn’t mean they’ll draft said players because they followed them during the year before they knew where they would draft exactly.

 

[WeThreeKings]

I meant it more in a way that there’s of course infos about players they like. That doesn’t mean they’ll draft said players because they followed them during the year before they knew where they would draft exactly.

100

 

[UrbanImpact]

He is all over the place. Lots of mocks dont have him in the top 10 and have ASP ahead of him.
Then there's a few mocks that have him going as early as 5th to MTL.

I hope posters arent weighing too much on these small sample size tournaments like the WJC and World Championships.

There are very good forwards lurking out there that might get passed on for Reinbacher.

I still have PTSD when the Canucks drafted Oli Juolevi over Mathew Tkachuk because OJ completely dominated the WJC that winter.

 

[Mrb1p]

A few short snippets from the very long and very good Drance article above. Everyone should subscribe and read all of his content.

View attachment 711476View attachment 711477View attachment 711479View attachment 711480View attachment 711481

Thats like the worst assessments of Rienbacher ever. Probably someone that scouts the OHL chiming in.

 

[TheYardMachine]

Do you think he could project as a Suter-like player later in hes career?

A guy that can hit without being overly physical.

Smooth skating that can play a lot of minutes.

Not amazing offensively but can play on the powerplay.

 

[majormajor]

Do you think he could project as a Suter-like player later in hes career?

A guy that can hit without being overly physical.

Smooth skating that can play a lot of minutes.

Not amazing offensively but can play on the powerplay.

Sounds about right and I'm not sure it will take long for him to become that player in the NHL.

I actually see him providing offense mostly through strong play both ways in transition, which gives more pucks to his scorers, maybe similar to McAvoy. I don't know if Reinbacher is anything special on the PP.

 

[MNRube]

He’s a 6’2 RHD with solid skating + quiet mind and production in a men’s league so I fully expect him to be gone by #8 at the latest.

Reminds me of Sanderson in that he just kept rising during his draft year as scouts probed and failed to find any legitimate weaknesses. I like him a touch more than Leonard / Dvorsky / Benson as the BPA at #6

 

[Hinterland]

Do you think he could project as a Suter-like player later in hes career?

A guy that can hit without being overly physical.

Smooth skating that can play a lot of minutes.

Not amazing offensively but can play on the powerplay.

I mean it's not a bad comparison but Ryan Suter is a special player. That guy played close to 30mins per game for years...and even in the later stages of his career he was still out there for 30mins whenever a game was tight. All of this seemingly effortless and with high quality, making barely any mistakes. He's like the Connor Hellebuyck of defense.

I don't think Reinbacher gets even close to that. Most likely, nobody will anytime soon. Reinbacher played heavy pro minutes as a kid for Kloten but himself says he still needs to work on his game without the puck. Reinbacher is also more adventurous than Suter. It's possible NHL coaches are trying to get him to stop doing that but Reinbacher does take risks. Not stupid risks but he's gonna gamble if given the chance. He's gonna step up to make a hit, he's gonna fly the zone and he's gonna crash the net. So even though he prefers to make quick quality plays with the puck rather than holding onto it or doing fancy stuff he's still an offensive minded player. Ryan Suter, much like Reinbacher, provides offense via lots of quality plays in transition but his mindset was always safety first from what I see. Also, he's more confident and stronger on pucks than Reinbacher is. Reinbacher wants to play like Roman Josi who's very steady but not quite as steady and more offensive than Ryan Suter.

I believe Reinbacher has top pairing potential but Ryan Suter is a unique player. The high quality minutes he gave his teams is unheard of and he's still logging 20mins aged 38. I'll be amazed if Reinbacher is as solid, durable and reliable as Suter.

 

[Guadana]

From actual drafts from 2017 to 2022 people should learn that drafting talented defenseman is a better way to build your team than winger or center with more questionable potential. I still think that 1st line center is more valuable, but 1st pair defensemen are better and more important prospects to build around.

I can`t say that Reinbacher is top-5. But after that? sorry, but even second or third defenseman is more valuable piece to build around. And Reinbacher is very good to be drafted after top prospects.

Seider wasn`t overdrafted. Because he is physical two way defenseman with good defensive and offensive upside. Edvinsson wasn`t overdrafted, Sanderson wasn`t. It is just a real way to build good team. And gm`s understand it and act this way. Of course you always can find Olli Juolevi, but you can prefer Puljujarvi or Nylander or PLD over Sergachyov. And it is stupid desicion. Or Zacha over Werenski and Provorov. It works in other way greatly.


So even if this defensive generations svcks, it does change nothing about Reinbacher as specific player. If we want to draft player, we should compare him, his pros and cons with Benson or Leonard or Sale or Moore. And think about their floor and their ceiling. And Reinbacher has great floor and "top5\top-10 defensman" ceiling. It`s way more valuable and important than what some of top-6-11\12 forwards can offer on this draft.

What he did in Swiss league is much more impressive than what Dvorsky did in Allsvenskan. Dvorsky on the other hand was very productive on international level. But he is playing for much better team at least. I`m not ready to say who is better because no one has real answer. But scouts and gms should think - between Dvorsky and Reinbacher, who is closer to 1st line center\1st pair defenseman, and who is closer to second line\pair player.

And it`s only Dvorsky. May be dafting Reinbacher by 6th pick is too early(I don`t think it is, but I dont think Coyots should draft him necessarily), but drafting Reinbacher by 6-10 pick is the very good move by gm(of course if Smith or Michkov aren`t available). And some of the forwards, who wil be drafted after, will light this league out, of course. But it`s ok if team will have their 1st-2nd best defenseman.

Personally, Reinbacher reminds me Nikishin a lot. He isn`t worser prospect than Jiricek. And I think that Jackets are ok with having Jiricek over Savoie.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

I've never seen such a fierce, multi-page debate over whether a prospect goes at #5 or #6-#10. It's such a weird set of choices to begin with.

 

[Siludin]

I've never seen such a fierce, multi-page debate over whether a prospect goes at #5 or #6-#10. It's such a weird set of choices to begin with.

It's a wider debate than that.
Some people do have him in the top 10 for sure
But others have him down in the second round, which seems crazy.
I think there is a high chance he goes in the 15-10 range. Maybe Vancouver.

 

[Nico Cauzuki]

if the first 4 picks go

CHI- Bedard
ANA - Fantilli
CLB - Carlsson
SJS - Michkov

i think Montreal takes Reinbacher at 5 if we dont Arizona will at 6

 

[WayneGretzky]

It's a wider debate than that.
Some people do have him in the top 10 for sure
But others have him down in the second round, which seems crazy.
I think there is a high chance he goes in the 15-10 range. Maybe Vancouver.

Outside of the top 25 is crazy to me, I agree, he should probably go 10-15.

Feels a lot like the 2015 draft…this kid feels like Provorov…maybe Philly makes the same mistake and takes him at 7, but there’s no doubt in my mind that they’d be passing on a Rantanen/Connor/Barzal and likely even a Chabot. The best prospect right now for me is Reinbacher, but I’d bet the true best of this class hasn’t revealed himself yet, the best D of this draft won’t be a top 10 pick, just my hunch.

 

[Postulates]

There is a reason for Steve Yzerman and his chefscout Kris Draper to make the long journey to Austria only to scout Reinbacher in the game Czechia vs. Austria.

There have been countless NHL scouts to Switzerland only to watch Reinbacher play. It started in November 2022 when scouts of the Washington Capitals, the Montreal canadians and the Vancouver Canucks were in Switzerland.

Shane Malloy, well known for his masterpiece the art of scouting has been repeatedly mentioning that a future Top 4 is more valuable to any NHL team that a top 6 forward. When you look at the results of the last two years it should be clear to everybody that some teams take a big swing to get high-end talent on the blueline.

No major scouting service had Korcinski in the top 10. No a single one, but Chicago they had the balls to draft Korcinski at #6.

Freimüller who served as a european scout for the atlanta trashers and looking back at 25+ years of scouting experience has Reinbacher in the same tier as Simon Nemec (2nd overall in 2022) and David Jiricek (sixth overall 2022). He said that Reinbacher has the potential to become a No. 2 defenceman in the NHL.

again, as GM of an NHL team you pick such a prospect like Reinbacher ahead of almost any winger in this years draft. Only Michkov should be taken ahead of Reinbacher. There was a report couple weeks ago saying that the Montreal Canadians are very interested in Reinbacher.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Habs select him at #5.
If they don't Stevie Yzerman will hit gold again picking Reinbacher at #9.

It's always the same story: the North American guys hype their prospects and the European prospects don't get the credit they deserve. Who was giving credit and respect to Elias Pettersson? Who was giving credit to Moritz Seider?
Seider would go 1st overall in any re-draft. I remember well, how all the north american guys raved about Bowen Byram. Laugh my ass off. Just look where bowen Byram is today in comparision to Seider.
Time for the north american guys to take a hard look in the mirror and question their ability to make unbiased assessments.

There is a 100-point (99 but missed 4 games) center in New Jersey who would go first

 

[Steve Kournianos]

I've never seen such a fierce, multi-page debate over whether a prospect goes at #5 or #6-#10. It's such a weird set of choices to begin with.

It’s not that fierce TBH. Vast majority of media reports say scouts aren’t behind him going higher than the top forwards. I really dont think its clickbait either. The general consensus from eye-testers is that Reinbacher is good but not better than that elite cluster of forwards.

If NHL/CSB scouts and fans were 50/50 it would spark major debate on an international scale. I love democracy and everybody gets a say but Reinbacher for Top 5 is only office cooler talk at this point, mostly because CSB/NHL scouts haven't supported it. FWIW, wouldn’t be shocked if he goes to CBJ or SJ.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

It’s not that fierce TBH. Vast majority of media reports say scouts aren’t behind him going higher than the top forwards. I really dont think its clickbait either. The general consensus from eye-testers is that Reinbacher is good but not better than that elite cluster of forwards.

If NHL/CSB scouts and fans were 50/50 it would spark major debate on an international scale. I love democracy and everybody gets a say but Reinbacher for Top 5 is only office cooler talk at this point, mostly because CSB/NHL scouts haven't supported it. FWIW, wouldn’t be shocked if he goes to CBJ or SJ.

By “fierce” I just meant “a lot of words and pages typed.” And mostly by one person defining his wrong “Reinbacher is Top 5” stance.