Montreal Canadiens rookie camp is right around the corner; the long, dry summer of content is nearing a close.But for now, we are still in it, and we had so many submissions for our mailbag that we felt it was wrong to do just one.So, here’s Part 2 of the mailbag, addressing questions on David Reinbacher, Oliver Kapanen and more as we count down the days to training camp.(Some questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)Given the Habs’ purported interest in another veteran right-shot defenceman, do you feel that the internal expectations for David Reinbacher have diminished over the last few months? – Jaideep K.There are two parts to Jaideep’s question, so let’s tackle them one at a time.The Canadiens had a very real interest in adding a right-shot defenceman at the trade deadline last spring. But that interest was short-term in nature, and the Canadiens’ willingness to pay for adding a right-shot defenceman reflected the short-term nature of their interest.A rental to slot onto the right side of the Canadiens’ defence for the stretch run and the playoffs was something they were strongly considering, but it didn’t come to fruition, perhaps in part because they were not necessarily pursuing it all that aggressively. Connor Murphy is a name I’ve heard would have interested them, especially considering it cost the Edmonton Oilers only a 2028 second-round pick to get him from the Chicago Blackhawks. But I would have been stunned to see the Canadiens sign him to the five-year contract worth more than $20 million with full no-move protection the Oilers gave Murphy in the aftermath.A big reason why the Canadiens were looking for a short-term solution and not a long-term one on right defence at the deadline is David Reinbacher, and that is also a big reason why the Canadiens’ search for a right-shot defenceman in the offseason was relatively low on their priority list. I haven’t gotten the sense this is something the Canadiens were actively looking for over the summer.The hope remains that Reinbacher wins a job in training camp, and the fact that he has already been skating in Brossard for a while now is a reflection of the opportunity he has in front of him.But the second part of Jaideep’s question is valid, regarding whether the internal expectations on Reinbacher have diminished. Because while the hope exists that Reinbacher wins a job out of camp, the lack of certainty in that regard three years after he was selected with the No. 5 pick is, in and of itself, a reason to have diminished expectations.In the 10 NHL drafts before Reinbacher’s 2023 draft, 11 defencemen were taken with a top-five pick: Seth Jones (No. 4 in 2013), Aaron Ekblad (No.1, 2014), Noah Hanifin (No. 5, 2015), Olli Juolevi (No. 5, 2016), Miro Heiskanen (No. 3, 2017), Cale Makar (No. 4, 2017), Bowen Byram (No. 4, 2019), Jake Sanderson (No. 5, 2020), Owen Power (No. 1, 2021), Luke Hughes (No. 4, 2021) and Šimon Nemec (No. 2, 2022).Of those 11, only two — Juolevi and Makar — had not played a full NHL season by his 21st birthday. Juolevi was a bust for the Vancouver Canucks, but Makar was obviously the opposite of a bust and a sign that it might not be too late for Reinbacher. If you expand the scope to defencemen picked in the top 10 over those same 10 drafts, you get a list of 25 defencemen, and still, the only three on that list not to have played a full NHL season by their 21st birthday in addition to Juolevi and Makar are Haydn Fleury, Simon Edvinsson and Brandt Clarke, which means 80 percent of those defencemen taken in the top-10 had established themselves in the NHL by the time they were Reinbacher’s age.On Oct. 25, Reinbacher will turn 22, an age by which Makar had 57 regular season games and 25 playoff games under his belt. Reinbacher enters the season with two regular-season games in the NHL and will reach no higher than 12 by his 22nd birthday if he breaks camp with the Canadiens and plays all of their games through Oct. 25, which, frankly, seems unlikely.So, while injuries have played a big part in Reinbacher’s delayed ascension, there is reason to have diminished expectations, at least to some degree, because when you take a defenceman at No. 5 with a lot of forward talent still on the board, the hope is he would be at the very least an established NHL defencemen three years later, and that is quite simply not the case for Reinbacher right now.Expectations were always tempered for Reinbacher from the moment he was drafted, with Montreal general manager Kent Hughes stating on draft night that the hope was he would become a top-four defenceman. That hope remains a strong possibility. The best version of Reinbacher remains exactly what the Canadiens blue line could use: a stabilizing, two-way presence on the right side that would allow Lane Hutson to permanently go back to his natural left side. If Reinbacher can slot in behind Noah Dobson on the right side of Montreal’s top four, he will become exactly what the Canadiens were hoping they drafted in 2023.But until he does it, there will be some doubt because the vast majority of his recent peer group had already done it by this point.