The Habs had another player ahead of Reinbacher to draft at the 5th rank, and there was a last-minute change
As we conclude our analysis of the very interesting documentary released towards the end of last week by the Montreal Canadiens, about the behind-the-scenes of the 2023 NHL draft, let's note an extremely interesting passage.
It was overlooked, but in a video filmed a few hours before the draft, you can clearly hear Jeff Gorton say this:
So, they changed their mind relatively at the last minute, once again seemingly.
Gorton seems to constantly question the consensus.
It gives the impression that he was afraid to miss out on a talent like Matvei Michkov (while the scouts seem very sold on Reinbacher). We love to see this.
It's really interesting to see how it actually happened behind the scenes. There's a lot of ambiguity, but in light of all this, it seems we understand this:
Reinbacher was not the first option considered by the Canadiens, but a few hours/days before the draft, after a substantial internal discussion, Reinbacher found himself ahead of another player (whose name is censored, but we imagine they are talking about Matvei Michkov here).
The way they speak, it indeed matches a lot with the Russian's profile.
See in the following excerpt:
| POLL | ||
Which one will be the most dominant, in your opinion? | ||
| Reinbacher | 306 | 48.7 % |
| Ryan Leonard | 128 | 20.4 % |
| Michkov | 173 | 27.5 % |
| Dalibor Dvorsky | 21 | 3.3 % |
| List of polls | ||
