There was Carey Price — the last player to be chosen fifth overall by the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL Draft — standing at the podium at Bridgestone Arena, tasked with cutting the most suspenseful moment of Wednesday evening after generational talent Connor Bedard went to the Chicago Blackhawks at No. 1.
Instead, Price ended up extending it.
For weeks leading up to this day in Nashville, it was rumoured the Canadiens may trade away the fifth pick. In the hours leading up to their selection, the chatter was they had received multiple offers to move down the order. And right before the draft got underway, general manager Kent Hughes told Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman the chances he’d hold on at five were upwards of 50 per cent.
After Leo Carlsson went to the Anaheim Ducks at No. 2, Adam Fantilli to the Columbus Blue Jackets at three and Will Smith to the San Jose Sharks fourth, all eyes shifted to Hughes at the Canadiens’ table.
As cameras panned his way, he sat stoically, with his phone tucked away to signify trade opportunities had been dismissed, preparing to take the stage with Price and the Canadiens’ brass in tow.
Hughes got up there and congratulated the Vegas Golden Knights for winning the Stanley Cup. He wished David Poile, who was completing his 26th year as the hometown Predators’ GM, a happy retirement. And then he saluted Canadiens fans watching from around the globe before making way for Price to announce the team’s pick.
“Le Canadien de Montreal are proud to select David…” Price said.
And then he froze. Completely.
That Price either forgot David Reinbacher’s last name or simply fumbled it before Hughes comically interjected, “We planned it that way,” was, at the very least, ironic.
Reinbacher wasn’t the sexy choice, and certainly not the one Canadiens fans would’ve made. They wanted a flashier name, and not necessarily a complicated one to pronounce.
They tilted pre-draft Twitter polls with Matvei Michkov’s name.
He was the player labeled the second-most talented in the draft by several prognosticators, he was sitting right there for the taking, and then he was left right there by the Canadiens.
In a sparkling draft class studded with diamonds at forward, many Montreal fans would’ve settled for Ryan Leonard — the vaunted scorer with grit, who drew comparisons to the Tkachuk brothers by Hughes himself at the NHL combine earlier this month — or perhaps even Zach Benson, a shifty pivot who scored 98 points with the Western Hockey League’s Winnipeg Ice this past season.
In the end, the Canadiens chose a six-foot-two, steady, right-handed Austrian defenceman who played huge minutes this past season as one of the youngest players in Switzerland’s top professional league; a player who made his three-syllable family name notable in Europe — and across the hockey world — and made himself too appealing for this team to ignore.
Reinbacher, a self-described “breakout defenceman,” was the cream of this year’s back-end crop — a mobile, puck-moving two-way player characterized by draft analysts as bona fide top-four defenceman who could become a top-two blie-liner if his offensive potential hits to match the maturity he was already displaying in closing down plays with his efficient skating stride and his long reach. He was long suspected the Canadiens’ most coveted player in this class, and they confirmed that when they took him and turned aside opportunities to collect additional assets to move down and took him.
“We had a lot of calls to make a trade,” Hughes told reporters in attendance after the first round was complete, “but the end of the day our scouts absolutely wanted us to keep our pick so we could take David.”
As for why the Canadiens opted for the 194-pounder, who posted three goals and 22 points in 46 games with Kloten HC, over Michkov, Leonard or another talented forward, Hughes said, “He’s a diamond in the rough.”
“He still has a lot of potential — be it physically or in his game,” he added. “And the first thing he said at our table was, “I’m excited to put on my work boots to help you win the Stanley Cup.”
Whether or not Reinbacher will be able to immediately begin on that task from the Canadiens’ blue line is yet to be determined.
Hughes said they’ll bring him to next week’s development camp and decide at a later date whether or not his process will be better served in Europe, Montreal, or in the American Hockey League next season. Either way, the GM didn’t make it seem as though there’s a rush to get him with the Canadiens.
While it was long speculated Hughes and the Canadiens might have been too impatient to wait three years for Michkov to complete his contract in Russia, that didn’t appear to be the deciding factor in passing on him.
“There are so many factors that enter the decision, one of which is that we never got to see him play,” Hughes said, referring to the restriction of not being able to travel to Russia due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
“We believe a lot in video, but not solely in video,” Hughes added. “It’s certain there were many factors, but one was definitely that we didn’t get to see him play.”
The Canadiens got a lot of viewings on Reinbacher — and just as many, if not more, on some of the talented forward and defence prospects playing in various leagues across North America and Europe. They came away from them and interviews held with the player, his teammates, his coaches and managers feeling he was their best choice.
“He was very humble,” Hughes said. “He talked a lot about working and having to earn things. When we talk a lot about culture, he’s a very good fit for us (in that way). He’s not expecting to be given things. He wants to earn his ice time.”
With it, Hughes feels Reinbacher can develop into a top-pairing defenceman.
“I don’t see him just as a shutdown (defenceman),” he said. “He’s big and long defensively and very good with his stick, but he also has a really good skating stride. And if you watch him move the puck out of his own end, you see the hockey sense.”
It may not be as tantalizing as the skill Michkov (who went seventh overall to the Philadelphia Flyers) displayed in highlights Canadiens fans devoured over the months leading up to Wednesday night, but Hughes assured he made this pick based purely on the talent and potential of the player.
That Reinbacher fills a need at a position of weakness for the team was a bonus and not a deciding factor, according to the GM.
Now it’ll be up to the player to make his name unforgettable in Montreal.
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