Canadiens' Beck poised to prove offensive ceiling is higher than expected

MONTREAL— “I knew we were getting a guy who’s a pure scorer,” said Chris Lazary.

When we asked the Saginaw Spirit coach what he knew of Owen Beck before general manager Dave Drinkill made his acquisition from the Peterborough Petes following the 2024 world junior championship, those were the first words out of his mouth, and they caught our attention.

Much more so than what Lazary said next.

Because three minutes into our short phone conversation Friday morning, when he started listing off Beck’s faceoff prowess, his defensive acumen and penalty killing ability before referring to him as arguably the best 200-foot player in the Ontario Hockey League, he was echoing what virtually everyone has said about the six-foot centre since well before the Montreal Canadiens selected him 33rd overall in 2022.

But that first thing? That was different.

It struck at the root of what almost everyone seems to overlook about Beck in projecting what he’ll become as a fully-baked player in the National Hockey League down the line — that his offensive ability can make him more than just a third-line centre.

“I do think he can burst through that ceiling,” said Lazary.

Watching Beck excel in his system — from early days in January to the second one in June, when Beck scored two goals and put on an MVP performance against the London Knights to help deliver Saginaw its first Memorial Cup — provided all the evidence he needed to make that assertion.

Lazary’s offensive-zone concepts encouraged free thinking and movement, creative plays over by-the-book ones, and they enabled Beck’s intelligence, physical engagement and skill and helped him unlock the most unheralded part of his game. And It led Lazary to his firm conclusion.

“I do think he can push up into that 2C role in the NHL,” he said. “But if his worst case is as a third centre, I don’t see any issue with that. You need those guys to win.

“I do think he has more than that, though.”

There was nothing hyperbolic about that statement.

The player backed it up with 18 goals and 51 points in 32 regular-season games before scoring four goals and 14 points in 17 playoff contests with Saginaw, and what he showed in addition to that was something that would only reinforce Lazary’s belief.

“He’s a competitor that wants to win,” he said. “You get those guys at the [trade] deadline, you’re not sure if they’re really going to want to win or they’re just coming over to play out the string of their OHL career. But he came in and his sole mission was to win this Memorial Cup. It was the only thing left from an individual perspective that he did not win in junior. He won gold at the World Js [in 2023], he won the league, but the Memorial Cup was missing for him. He was on a mission.

“He’s a competitive guy that absolutely hates to lose, and that’s even pre-Mem Cup. During the regular season and into the playoffs, he did not want to lose. He’s highly competitive.”

Beck is confident, too, without being arrogant.

When we caught up with him this past Wednesday, upon his return from a one-week vacation in Aruba, he was self-assured but measured, and particularly balanced in responding the most pointed question we had for him.

“What runs through your mind when you hear Owen Beck will top out as a good third-line centre,” we asked.

“I mean, I get it. Everybody has an opinion and they're entitled to it,” the 20-year-old conceded. “I just believe my internal competencies are so much more than that. And, you know, obviously, if you're a third-line centre on a Stanley Cup-winning team, you're still playing a big role, and that's something that I would look to do if need be.

“But I also see myself developing to a point where I could be a top-six guy and obviously believe in myself. But time will tell.”

Beck wasn’t going to make any bold proclamations about his future — about whether or not he’d be beginning his professional career this fall with the Canadiens or their minor-league affiliate in Laval, or if he’d one day be finishing it as a top point producer in the NHL. What he said was that he was, and would continue doing, everything possible to give himself the best chance to succeed.

Beck said this past year taught him a lot about himself, about how to keep it in perspective that he’s a constant work in progress, about how to navigate the ups and downs of a season while maintaining focus on his goals, about how to find different ways to produce offence while continuing to build up the strong defensive foundation of his game, and about how he could best serve his own development on and off the ice.

He then credited the Canadiens for putting him in the best place to do it from the start.

Beck was hoping to make it with them last fall. He was disappointed when he didn’t.

“But I think that going back to junior was such a great decision by Montreal's front office,” he said. “The conversations that we had weren't easy to hear at the time but, looking back on it now, it just made so much more sense. I could have played a bottom-six role and just maybe been in and out of the lineup, played 10-12 minutes a night and maybe not developed nearly as much as I would have going back to junior and playing 25 minutes a night, playing power play, playing penalty kill, taking big faceoffs, playing against the other team's best lines, kind of growing my game in that sense with more repetition.”

Accepting that reality proved fundamental, and the rest of the process off the ice just as pivotal.

It was overseen by former Canadiens player Paul Byron, who retired last September and immediately jumped into a consulting role in player development with the organization.

Beck leaned on Byron every step of the way.

“With him being a forward who earned every minute of his career — and he had an unbelievable work ethic and a great career — it made the most sense for me to talk to him a lot,” Beck said. “He went through a lot of my video, and I think that, along with learning from (Lazary) when I got to Saginaw and and all the other info and knowledge I gathered over the year, played a big part in helping me develop every aspect of my game. He really looked into the details of my film and gave me suggestions through the majority of my shifts over the season, so that was an awesome resource to have. He was always an open line of communication, and he never sugarcoated anything for me.”

Byron’s honesty wasn’t the only thing that resonated with Beck. His advice off the hop put him in the right from of mind and served him through every peak and valley he navigated.

“I think the biggest thing he told me was to focus on the now,” Beck explained. “He started by telling me, ‘Don't go back into this junior year looking to make the Canadiens. Go back into this junior year looking to improve and put yourself in the best position to come into the following camp and crack that roster.’

“He put together a visualization board for me at the start of the year, focusing on a lot of the things that he wanted me to improve on and the things that he wanted me to focus on.”

The big things on it — like cracking Team Canada’s world junior roster — were just as important to Beck as the small things.

“Cleaning up after myself in the room and not making any unnecessary work for any other staff members, for example,” Beck said was instrumental in further developing character.

As the season went along, Beck’s confidence in himself grew, too. As did his output at both ends of the ice.

It particularly showed in the offensive zone, where Beck found different ways to leverage his tools and produce at a level he hadn’t previously in the OHL.

His final game, which ended with the crowning achievement of his junior career, was but an example of how far he had come.

Beck credited Lazary for helping him get there, too, while Lazary explained why Beck was meant to excel in his system.

“Just the way we play with routing and concepts and allowing our guys to hold onto pucks and make plays and trying to build our players up with what we call manipulation tools so they can dictate outcomes where maybe normally they’d chip a puck but instead have tools to manipulate and control speed to maybe find a better play — I really think he just bought into the concept of being allowed to make plays here,” the coach said. “We want guys entering through the middle of the ice, and that’s one of many concepts I think he just ate up. We don’t have hard rules in the o-zone, but we have structural concepts that we want to get to that put guys on the ice in certain spots and that allow for a lot of movement and switching and changing and interchangeable parts, and I think he just really enjoyed that because he’s very cerebral. His brain can pick up those concepts and make them work in real time.”

We couldn’t help but remark how similar all of that sounded to what several Canadiens players have said they’ve experienced playing for coach Martin St. Louis.

“That’s one thing Becker did say,” said Lazary. “He said, ‘You’re a lot like Marty with the way you see stuff, being outside the box in a good way, and players like that kind of style.’”

To know it won’t be long before Beck is under St. Louis’s tutelage is to know he’ll have that much better of a chance to access the offence that can turn him into more than what most people expect him to be.

But Beck is just focused on everything he must do this summer to give himself the best opportunity to begin that journey come September.

He’ll train five days a week in the gym with strength and conditioning coach Jeremy Benoit. He’ll work skills and skate alongside several other prospects also graduating to pro and some already playing at that level just as frequently, except for coming into and coming out of Canadiens development camp. And he aims to arrive at rookie camp a much more developed and mature player than he was one year ago.

“Regardless of what happens, I'm playing pro hockey,” Beck said. "So I've got it in my mind that it's going to be a big step next year no matter where I am. I know I'm going to be ready for it.”

Lazary believes Beck will be, too, and that he’ll prove in time that he’ll be able to do more than just shut players down at hockey’s top level.

“To me, in the NHL, winning puck battles and being strong on the puck is huge, and he excels at those things,” Lazary said. “He does those things, he’s strong, he supports the puck well as a centre, he’s good on both sides of it, and he can score. And at the end of the day, with his ability to score over maybe some of the guys who are more third-line-type players in the NHL, he’ll show he has that offensive side to him because of his shot and his ability to create."

“He’s a great kid, he’s happy to be a Montreal Canadien,” Lazary added. “I’m looking forward to seeing him wear that jersey.”