{"id":933973,"date":"2026-10-19T17:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T17:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/933973\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T17:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T17:12:11","slug":"canadiens-notebook-lefty-righty-defence-balance-boosted-by-reinbacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/933973\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens notebook: Lefty-righty defence balance boosted by Reinbacher"},"content":{"rendered":"

BROSSARD, Que.\u2014 Saturday\u2019s game against the Buffalo Sabres presented an opportunity to not only see David Reinbacher in action, but also to see what the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> look like with three perfectly balanced defence pairings all featuring legitimate NHL talent.<\/p>\n

We hadn\u2019t seen enough of either since Martin St. Louis stepped behind the bench in February of 2022. Not of Reinbacher, who\u2019s been plagued by injuries since being taken fifth overall by the Canadiens in June of 2023, and certainly not of three lefty-righty combos giving St. Louis all the optionality he looks for in different situations.<\/p>\n

And even though St. Louis may have had that balance through a handful of games over his first three seasons as Canadiens coach, it\u2019s not as if he was able to depend on six players that could truly execute every option he\u2019d have wanted to have exercised.<\/p>\n

Hey, we\u2019re not knocking righty Gustav Lindstrom, who filled in quite admirably on the third defence pair during the 2023-24 season. But his 14-game espresso with the Canadiens was indicative of who they were then\u2014a young, inexperienced, shallow team learning how to play before it could be taught how to win\u2014versus who they are now.<\/p>\n

Now that the Canadiens are considerably deeper on the blue line, and now that they know how to win, they\u2019re focused on the finer details that will enable them to beat the best with regularity and eventually overtake them. And a team in that position only benefits from the optionality that lefty-righty balance on the back end gives you.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel it helps,\u201d said St. Louis before he played Reinbacher to the right of lefty Arber Xhekaj beneath lefty Lane Hutson and righty Noah Dobson and lefty Kaiden Guhle and righty Alexandre Carrier.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there\u2019s guys who can play on their off-sides,\u201d St. Louis continued. \u201cBut just to give you an example, just off face-offs in our own zone, if you have two lefties, you\u2019re going to be handcuffed in what you can do. Strategically, it takes some of the plays out of the equation if you have two lefties. If you\u2019ve got a lefty-righty, we have different things we can do, and we can do them all. When you have two lefties or two righties together, you can\u2019t do them all, so you become a little more predictable for the other team because there\u2019s a few things that you can\u2019t do. So, that\u2019s one element that helps you to have lefty-righty (combos).\u201d<\/p>\n

Another is in the offensive zone, where you can choose between shifting each defenceman to their off-side to position them for one-timers off face-offs or leave them on their strong sides to keep them on their respective forehands moving down the wall.<\/p>\n

Keeping them on their forehands in all three zones, but particularly in the defensive zone, is optimal, which is undoubtedly why St. Louis said he thinks every team would opt to have three lefty-righty combos if they could.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty sure they\u2019d take that,\u201d he said, knowing it\u2019s a luxury in short supply.<\/p>\n

Exactly half the teams in the league are currently icing a lineup that features three lefty-righty combos, though that number would shrink to 15 if Simon Edvinsson had a contract in Detroit.<\/p>\n

And it could go down to 14 as soon as Mike Matheson returns from the lower-body injury he\u2019s currently nursing if Reinbacher can\u2019t supplant either Xhekaj or Adam Engstrom on the Canadiens\u2019 third pair.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no telling if the young Austrian will be able to, but his third NHL game was still one to build on, even if he was at the root of an early goal against and used sparingly due to the Canadiens being shorthanded four times through the first 60 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he did great,\u201d said St. Louis of Reinbacher\u2019s 9:09 spread over 13 shifts. \u201cYou know, the first goal, sometimes things like that\u2014especially early on\u2014can affect the rest of the game, (but) I didn\u2019t feel it did. I thought he just really tried to have good intentions; play the game that\u2019s in front of him. Overall, I was pleased, especially after being on the ice for the first goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

St. Louis had reason to be pleased, because Reinbacher was on the ice for a lot more good than bad, with the Canadiens controlling shot attempts 14-4 and 53 per cent of the expected goals over that time.<\/p>\n

But because that time was so limited, we didn\u2019t get enough of a glimpse of what the Canadiens would look like with the optimal lefty-righty balance they could deploy in a given game. And we still might not have full perspective on it until Matheson is back in a game where Reinbacher is also deployed.<\/p>\n

But in Matheson continued absence, it\u2019s worth extending Reinbacher\u2019s runway. First, to reinforce his confidence, see what he can do, and give him valuable repetitions at this level. And second, to see what that balance does for the Canadiens.<\/p>\n

Penalty kill has come to life<\/p>\n

After allowing five goals on the first 21 power plays given to their opposition, the Canadiens have only allowed one goal on their last 17 penalty kills.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a stretch that\u2019s allowed the Canadiens to climb from 24th in the category to 12th\u2014an unlikely jump considering Matheson wasn\u2019t available to play the last three games.<\/p>\n

He not only led the Canadiens in time on ice on the penalty kill last season; he led the league in the category.<\/p>\n

Kaiden Guhle\u2019s return to play is a big factor in the turnaround, with the 24-year-old currently averaging 3:43 per game on the penalty kill. Arber Xhekaj, who\u2019s averaging 2:08 per game in his new penalty killing role, is also fairing quite well.<\/p>\n

But what it really comes down to, according to penalty killing forward Alex Newhook, is the unit finding the cohesion they were missing in employing a new, more aggressive structure assistant coach Derek Lalonde put in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re coming together, and we\u2019re like one bounce away from being very, very good,\u201d said Newhook before the Canadiens killed all four Sabres power plays on Saturday. \u201cWe\u2019re realizing when to apply pressure, making teams uncomfortable in some instances. Trusting it is probably the biggest thing for us, even though we had a tough start and a lot of goals against. We just kept trusting it, and now it\u2019s starting to click.\u201d<\/p>\n

St. Louis could see it, too.<\/p>\n

He just wants it to be maintained now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we\u2019re applying our rules, we can kill penalties,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like when they\u2019re trying to find their best options, I feel like they don\u2019t get it easily, so I\u2019m encouraged by that. I feel like when we\u2019re on, we\u2019re not giving Grade-A looks. It\u2019s a work in progress. It\u2019s a cat-and-mouse game; the more you\u2019re going to go through the season, they watch video, they\u2019re going to try to break you every which way, and we\u2019ve just got to stay composed and detailed and inside our rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Saturday Night living up to his name<\/p>\n

Cole Caufield came into this season with 34 goals on Saturday nights since the start of 2024-25, and through three Saturday nights has continued to be as productive as ever.<\/p>\n

Caufield now has four goals, including the overtime winner he scored against the Sabres this past Saturday night.<\/p>\n

It was the 66th goal in the 106th Saturday night game of Caufield\u2019s career, placing him sixth\u2014behind Mike Bossy, Wayne Gretzky, Cam Neely, Brett Hull and Pavel Bure\u2014in goals per game on Saturdays.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an absolutely inexplicable phenomenon, even if Caufield tried to offer a reason for his Saturday night success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think less traffic,\u201d the 25-year-old said. \u201cThat might be it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering he lives less than five minutes away from the Bell Centre, that can\u2019t be it.<\/p>\n

Also, it doesn\u2019t seem to matter whether the Canadiens are on the road or at home, even if Caufield said, \u201cSaturdays are great here. I think the crowd, the building, the city, you can just feel it, so very special.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no rhyme or reason to it; Saturday is just Caufield\u2019s night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BROSSARD, Que.\u2014 Saturday\u2019s game against the Buffalo Sabres presented an opportunity to not only see David Reinbacher in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":933974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-933973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/933974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}