The Montreal Canadiens have made some polarizing decisions this week in selecting David Reinbacher and trading for Alex Newhook. I try to analyze both decisions and look at the pros and cons here.
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8 Comments
What are your thoughts on the Habs selecting David Reinbacher and trading for Alex Newhook?
impossible to know on draft night, only slam dunk was Bedard
From what i gathered, Reinbacher is right on his inflexion point performace-wise. According Eric Faille, he has a top powerplay playmaker potentiel, and compared him to Josi. So all we can do is wait, i guess.
newhook will bring speed and good team spirit and is meant to complement other fowards. Also, lets not forget that Roy may be NHL ready,m so that makes a lot of young forwards, and a young tema in general. So i imagine that hughes is more looking to fill small spots and is simply waiting foe the sauce to harden and it seems the direction is confident in doing so.
Habs fans are going mental on this kid because the Habs didnt chose Michkov. Defense wins championship and the Habs are now stacked on D both the Left and Right side. A RHD are valuable and hard to come by. I remember Detroit fans were pissed that they took Seider early both he turn out great. The Devils pick Nemac at 2nd because he is a RHD just like Reinbacher and Seider. Remember Habs are pissed and confused when they took a Goalie name Price. Its a wait and see and they just 3 Goalies today. Lets trust on Hughes.He knows what he's doing. We're not scouts. Lets not shit on him because he didn't draft player you want.
I don’t understand why people are saying this was a bad pick. The top D man in the draft, right D which we desperately needed, and played against men this year. This kid is going to be a great defence-man! If Will Smith had been available I am pretty sure the
Habs would have taken him but to be honest I’m glad they didn’t take Michkov. He’s so small and with Caufield, Gallagher, and Pinard I think he would have been one small forward too many. Look at the four teams that made the semis in the playoffs. All huge teams. You build a good team from the goalie out. Our D is stacked! I’m happy.
I'll be ok with a Pietrangelo type of defenceman. You need that to win
Before commenting on your excellent opinion, here's a general observation. We often hear pundits say that you shouldn't draft out of "need" and in the same breath all say that the Habs absolutely had to draft goaltenders out of "need" 🤔. What isn't recommended is to draft based on the roster when a prospect is rarely ready for the NHL. Yes, Kent Hughes is absolutely right that the future "need" is a good tiebreaker between two equal value prospects.
The arguments to justify that Reinbacher would be an excellent pick 6 or 7 if MTL had lost the lottery are also valid for the 5th rank pick. We don't know Habs scouts valuation of the big four drafted before. Montreal decided to draft Reinbacher against alternative Michkov and maybe Leonard. With very little video we know that Michkov has exceptional offensive skills and that he will, in the best case, be available for the NHL in the fourth year, that he was demoted from St. Petersburg SKA to Sochi HC and that his father was murdered in shady conditions to say the least. Bobrov, who was a scout for St. Petersburg, certainly studied the situation carefully. The idea that weighing the "needs" of the team would be sacrilege is short-sighted. All management decisions must converge to build a champion team. Hughes and Gorton have been very clear that they want a competitive team for several years. Reinbacher has shown great progress over the past year both defensively and offensively, great maturity and a lot of character. He's right-handed and he has the potential to form, along with the rest of Canadiens' defensive prospects, one of the best squads in the entire NHL in a very short time. Team building is the top priority