Curious official statement from the NHL regarding David Reinbacher and Shane Wright

Despite the fact that David Reinbacher's selection by the Canadiens in the last draft is not unanimous, it remains that the young Austrian defenseman is a very high-quality prospect and is destined for a bright future in the NHL.

Moreover, as reported by the site Danslescoulisses.com, the fifth choice of the 2023 draft is among the top prospects, but he is even surpassed by a young player that many Canadiens fans would have liked to see in Montreal a little over a year ago.


A few days ago, the NHL Network released its ranking of the top 50 prospects, and unsurprisingly, a certain Connor Bedard tops the list.


Note that this ranking only includes players under 25 years old and who have less than 25 games of experience in the NHL. That's why Juraj Slafkovsky is not on this list.

See the official NHL statement:


We are curious to have your opinion on this subject.

To prove that the 2023 draft was a particularly good one, the top four prospects who were drafted this year are all in the rankings. Adam Fantilli is in second place, Leo Carlson in third, and a certain Matvei Michkov in fourth.

As for the Canadiens, two prospects from the organization are there, Reinbacher in 17th place and Lane Hutson in 26th position.

But we also notice that two ranks before the Canadiens' first pick in 2023, we find the name of Shane Wright of the Seattle Kraken in 15th position.

Can we consider Shane Wright to be a better prospect than David Reinbacher?

Not necessarily, as they are two players playing in two different positions, and in this case, I would wonder more about why the fourth choice of the 2022 draft is not ranked higher on this list of the 50 best prospects.

To think that two years ago, almost everyone saw him as the very first choice of the 2022 draft.

Returning to the two young defenseman of the Canadiens' organization, let's say that it is very encouraging to see them among the top prospects, and the most optimistic will say that they will form one of the best defensive pairs in the history of the Canadiens.

But as anything can happen in the wonderful world of hockey, we will wait to see their development within the organization.