The Montreal Canadiens selected defenseman David Reinbacher fifth in the NHL Draft on Wednesday night in Nashville.
Reinbacher is an Austrian who played in Switzerland with EHC Kloten last season. He had three goals and 19 assists in 46 games, leading the Swiss league in points by a player under 20.
He is an effective right-handed defender in all phases of the game and already has a certain maturity in his defensive game and a good skate for his size of six feet two inches.
Reinbacher is the seventh Austrian to be selected in the first round of the NHL Draft, and the third since 2020 after Marco Kasper (8th in 2022) and Marco Rossi (9th in 2020).
Last year, the Canadian chose Slovak forward Juraj Slafkovsky first in the draft, presented at the Bell Centre.
This is the fourth time since 2012 that the Canadiens have one of the first five draft picks. He also picked Alex Galchenyuk (2012) and Jesperi Kotkaniemi (2018) in third place. The last time the Canadiens spoke at No. 5 was in 2005, when they selected goaltender Carey Price.
Price was also to announce the selection of the Canadian, Wednesday evening. However, he had a memory lapse when doing so. General manager Kent Hughes eventually came to Price’s rescue.
The Canadiens also had the second-to-last pick in the first round, the 31st right to speak, when team officials arrived in Nashville earlier this week. Instead, Hughes traded that pick and a second-round pick, 37th overall, along with defenseman Gianni Fairbrother to the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday for forward Alex Newhook.
The draft continues Thursday. The Canadiens will start the day with a third-round pick (69th overall), three fourth-round picks (101st, 110th, 128th), two fifth-round picks (133rd, 144th), one sixth-round pick (165th) and a seventh-round pick (197th).