HabsWorld.net -- 

One of Montreal’s prospects is set to make his season debut on Wednesday night.  The Habs announced that defenceman David Reinbacher has been activated off season-opening IR and has been assigned to Laval.

This was supposed to be Reinbacher’s first full season in North America after getting his feet wet with the Rocket late in the 2023-24 campaign.  However, he suffered a knee injury during the preseason, one that was expected to keep him out until March or April.  Clearly, he wound up being well ahead of schedule in his recovery.

Reinbacher was the fifth overall pick back in 2023 following a strong effort with Kloten of the Swiss NL.  Unfortunately, things didn’t go as well last year with the team having three separate head coaches while he was also banged up at times as well.  This injury certainly didn’t help from a development standpoint either.

However, Laval still has 25 regular season games left heading into tonight’s action against Manitoba.  Those plus a possible playoff run would at least help salvage what looked to be a lost year of development.  His addition will be a welcome to the Rocket, a team that’s missing a pair of veterans on the back end (Gustav Lindstrom and Josh Jacobs) and is likely to lose Logan Mailloux or someone else to recall by Saturday when the Habs resume their season in Ottawa.

Notably, Reinbacher’s contract is eligible to slide and officially begin next season.  For that to happen, he can only play in nine or fewer games with the Habs.  With that in mind, while it’s possible (if not likely) that Reinbacher will get a look down the stretch, that probably won’t come until late in the year so as to guarantee that the contract will slide and still have three years on it heading into 2025-26.