The plan is to integrate David Reinbacher in Montreal next year

Dose
Crédit:

David Reinbacher didn’t have the 2024-25 season he had hoped for. The defenseman, who was supposed to get some minutes in Laval for his first year in North America, instead suffered a serious knee injury at training camp that kept him out for several months.

Because even if we remember the Laine/Paré incident, it’s also the night Reinbacher got seriously hurt.

The good news, however, is that Reinbacher returned to play a bit earlier than expected. The habs are being cautious with their defenseman (who is with the Rocket) since his return to play, but despite some recent concerns over a few missed games, he could be back in uniform as early as tomorrow.

The question, however, is how the Canadiens will handle their defenseman’s situation next year. We know the plan was to have him play in Laval this season and, if all went well, to have him graduate to full-time in 2025-26… but we wondered if his injury would change things.

Well, on the airwaves of BPM Sports tonight, Mathias Brunet talked about all this… and apparently, they’re considering sticking to the original plan:

The plan is to integrate David Reinbacher into Montreal next year. – Mathias Brunet

We can wonder if the Habs just don’t want to change their initial plan or if it’s mostly that they’re reassured to see Reinbacher being solid since his return to play. Because, after all, if he continues to play a lot of games in Laval until the end of the year and the team makes a bit of a run in the playoffs, it could give him around thirty games on the counter… which would save his season a bit.

The other question we have to ask ourselves is what this means for the current brigade. The team already has five NHL defensemen under contract for next year (Matheson, Guhle, Hutson, Carrier, and Xhekaj), and Jayden Struble, a restricted free agent, will also be back.

And that’s not counting the possibility of seeing David Savard sign a new contract in town this summer.

We can think that the first four have already secured their spots… and if the plan is really to see Reinbacher play full-time in Montreal, Xhekaj and Struble will have to arrive ready at camp, because there might only be one spot available.

Let’s see how all this evolves over the next few months, then.

Overtime

– I love it.

– Justin Carbonneau and Mateo Nobert are having success with the Armada.

– Great read on Sean Farrell.

– Oh well.