LAVAL, Que. — The opportunity David Reinbacher had to finish his season with the Laval Rocket after what looked from the outside like a nightmare season with EHC Kloten in Switzerland seemed like a way for him to finally play in a competitive environment.
Kloten was basically out of it by the time Reinbacher arrived from Montreal Canadiens training camp back in October, and his season appeared to be one in which he would need to manufacture that competition. Because his team was not the least bit competitive.
The Rocket trying to make a late surge to grab a playoff spot, therefore, seemed like an ideal change of pace, a way for Reinbacher to make something of his season after months of losing in Switzerland.
He didn’t see things that way. Not at all.
Manufacturing competition is seemingly not all that difficult for David Reinbacher.
“I mean, I would say for me every game is competitive, you play in every game for something, no matter where you’re standing,” he said Sunday as the Rocket conducted their exit interviews. “I took every game as a competition, a new challenge, as a new game to show my game and give my best performance in this game.”
Having said that, however, Reinbacher could admit he relished the ability to walk right into a playoff push.
“For sure it was different here,” he said. “It’s a different league, the playing style is different, it’s harder, it’s smaller ice, everything’s a little bit faster, the guys want to show they’re ready for the league.
“It’s different hockey but for sure it was a really nice experience getting to a team trying to make a playoff push.”
Reinbacher stayed true to himself arriving in Laval, playing a simple, efficient, consistent game without too much risk and with a lot of defensive acumen for a player dealing with a lot of differences from what he is used to.
Rocket coach Jean-François Houle provided a lucid, straightforward assessment of what he saw from Reinbacher over 11 games.
“I like his gap control a lot. I think his stick is really good,” Houle said. “He needs to get stronger. I think he can provide even more offence and I think he was maybe cautiously playing back a little bit, which is normal.”
David Reinbacher left a good impression on his coaches and teammates in Laval. (Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
We rewatched Reinbacher’s last five games of the season to look for the qualities Houle and Paquette-Bisson identified, and they were not difficult to find. Reinbacher’s time in Laval was not perfect, but it showed a young defenceman who is easily adaptable to a new environment and has qualities that are difficult to teach at this level, at a very young age.
But a lot of what Houle complimented in Reinbacher’s game is exactly what Arber Xhekaj and Justin Barron were sent back to Laval to learn or refine: gap control, stick details, overall defensive awareness. Watching Reinbacher play over a five-game stretch where Laval was fighting for its playoff life makes it clear that, even if Reinbacher starts next season in Laval, it won’t be to learn those same things.
Let’s go through them one at a time.
‘I like his gap control a lot’
Honestly, what’s not to like? Reinbacher is an impressively aggressive and decisive defender on entries, something he always did well in Switzerland, but something that seems enhanced by the smaller dimensions of the North American ice surface. He has always closed quickly on onrushing forwards, but with less space to cover on the ice, that instinctive defending seemed to only ramp up in Laval.
This is a good example of what Houle is talking about, with Reinbacher defending the far side of the ice.
Rush erased, puck recovered, puck sent out on a teammate’s stick in the neutral zone, Rocket on the attack. This play was not an outlier, far from it. It was typical of what Reinbacher did on just about every entry attempt on his side of the ice. He identifies defensive attack points extremely well, and once he does, he shows no hesitation to hit that attack point.
Sometimes the subsequent outlet pass doesn’t come immediately off the gap control, but it comes eventually, under extreme pressure.
The gap control wasn’t always perfect, however. In the game against Springfield on April 6, Reinbacher got caught playing too high in the neutral zone three times, leading to two breakaways and a two-on-one break, including this one on a penalty kill, which made it a bit more egregious.
But overall, this aggression in the neutral zone was a good thing. And the best part about it was that in his following game, Reinbacher did not sag back in the neutral zone. He kept playing the same way.
‘I think his stick is really good’
This has always been a strength of Reinbacher’s, his ability to dart his stick out and disrupt plays before moving in for the kill. He has a long stick, and he knows how to use it effectively.
In the Rocket’s most important game of the season at Belleville, the game that knocked them out of playoff contention, Reinbacher had a sequence where his good stick made three excellent plays in a row.
He is defending the near side of the ice, thwarts a Belleville entry right at the start of the clip, has another good stick in the neutral zone and finishes it with another stick check to halt a Belleville entry.
This is a regular occurrence for Reinbacher. He has the ability to play physical, and doesn’t shy away from it, but his initial line of defence is his stick and if he can use that to avoid a battle and stop an attack, that’s what he’s going to do.
‘He needs to get stronger’
This makes sense, considering he is coming from a league where physical play is not a big emphasis, and Reinbacher will turn 20 in late October. He has time to get stronger, and while his physical play is far from being a weakness, there were moments when he got outmuscled in Laval, like in this battle along the end boards against Cleveland.
This is something that will take care of itself as Reinbacher matures physically. What’s important for now is he doesn’t avoid these battle situations. In fact, he actively seeks them out. As he adds muscle — something Kaiden Guhle also said he hopes to do this offseason despite having two years of NHL experience under his belt — Reinbacher’s aggressive nature in battle situations will become that much more effective.
‘I think he can provide even more offence’
Reinbacher had five points in 11 games, which is not bad. The offensive upside of Reinbacher’s game has been the biggest question mark about his NHL star power, much like Guhle.
The skill set, the mobility and the vision are there, but Reinbacher has never put up great offensive numbers.
Houle is obviously correct in stating that Reinbacher often chose the conservative route offensively, but even when he did jump into the rush, it was sometimes botched by a bad pass or just poor execution, which probably didn’t help his confidence in doing more of that.
This is one example where Reinbacher’s initial pass is not expected by two teammates in the neutral zone, and as a result, the return pass is late and behind him and results in an offside. If this play were well executed, a good offensive opportunity was possible.
Again, these pushes were rare from Reinbacher, and perhaps a bit more runway to get fully comfortable at this level would have led to more of them. But another possibility is once he has the confidence, they will be well executed, say, in the NHL, and he might just decide to jump up more often.
Ultimately, it is difficult to look at Reinbacher’s time in Laval as anything but positive. He definitely left an impression on his teammates, some of whom don’t expect to see much of him next season.
“I’ve said it from the start, Rhino’s a really easy guy to play with, he’s really smart, talks a lot,” defence partner Tobie Paquette-Bisson said. “I think you guys saw it on the ice, he’s pretty physical and he can skate really well. To be honest, I think he’s set up to be a pro and I think we’ll see a lot of him in Montreal.”
And Houle made a point to emphasize not discounting how valuable this short stretch in Laval will be for Reinbacher next season.
“The experience a young player can get off those seven or 10 games, look at what it did for (Jayden) Struble last year,” Houle said. “Struble was with us seven games, six games, had confidence, came back this year, had a good camp, started with us and played in the NHL.
“So we can’t underestimate one, two, 10, seven games that a rookie can get. You cannot. It’s valuable and it prepares him for the following year, there’s no question in my mind. There’s no question. It’s just how it is.”
Another thing Reinbacher got a chance to get used to was simply living here. It was not Montreal, but Laval is not much different. He is a far more recognizable face here than he is at home, and it makes him uncomfortable. It’s not his style.
Is it something he will ever get used to?
“Yeah for sure,” he said with a smile. “One day.
“It’s a good comparison to go home, get the mind off, you get not recognized. You can go out and just be you, be yourself, have fun with your friends and do whatever you want. Here for sure, it’s a little bit different, but that’s the other side of being a pro here. You’ve always got to show your best side.”
That comment got me thinking of something Mark Streit told me in January about the adjustment for someone going from playing in Switzerland to playing in Montreal. The fanaticism for hockey is a massive culture shock. I saw it myself in Kloten when I spent a half hour with Reinbacher in a coffee shop and not a single person so much as noticed he was there, let alone approached him for a photo or an autograph.
For Streit, if you want the thrill of playing in front of a packed house at the Bell Centre — something Reinbacher definitely loved back in training camp — you have no choice but to expect the other side of that.
Reinbacher’s experience in his lone preseason game with the Canadiens made him want to stay in Montreal. (David Kirouac / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“You can’t have both,” Streit said. “You can’t love having 21,000 people every game and being a stud in the city but on the other hand you don’t want to be criticized or you don’t want to be talked to. It goes hand in hand. It’s just a matter of getting used to it and dealing with it.
“For me, that experience playing in Montreal was unbelievable. You come from here, sports is OK, but they’ll leave you alone, but you never have the same status. In the U.S. and Canada, pro sports, it’s just a different story. When you’re a pro athlete everyone thinks you’re unbelievable. Here, it’s like, OK, it’s a job, it’s a hobby where you make money and people ask you what are you going to do after.”
Reinbacher will need to make that adjustment, and getting a little taste of it living in a hotel in Laval will surely help that process. But what Reinbacher showed on the ice in Laval would suggest his time in the Montreal suburbs might be coming to an end relatively quickly.
(Top photo of David Reinbacher: Rocket de Laval)
