The Canadiens have turned to Owen Beck again, recalling the 22-year-old forward from AHL Laval as they prepare for a busy stretch.
Montreal announced the move earlier today, and while there was no corresponding transaction, the timing tells the story. Florian Xhehaj is listed day-to-day, Oliver Kapanen is on injured reserve, and that leaves the Canadiens with 12 healthy forwards.
If Xhehaj can’t play tomorrow against Buffalo, Beck is a strong candidate to slide into the lineup. Martin St.
Louis already showed he was willing to go light up front, using an 11F/7D setup in Saturday’s shootout win over Detroit.
Beck’s path to this point has been a fast one. Montreal took him with the first pick of the second round in the 2022 draft, 29 picks before Lane Hutson came off the board.
At that stage, Beck had already put together a strong OHL rookie season, posting 51 points in his first 68 games and building a reputation around his work at the face-off dot. He still needed more seasoning at the junior level, but the NHL came calling early anyway when he was summoned on an emergency basis from the Peterborough Petes for a January game against Ottawa.
He made his debut, went back down, and later helped the club win an OHL title.
Beck moved into the pro ranks full-time for the 2024-25 season and made a strong first impression in Laval. He put up 44 points in 64 games, which tied him for fourth on the team.
Last season was a step back offensively, as he finished with 33 points in 58 games, a total many would have liked to see climb. Even so, his value has never been built only on scoring.
Beck is a two-way center who handles penalty killing work and a shutdown role, while much of the offense in Laval runs through 31-year-old AHL standout Laurent Dauphin.
That profile has kept Beck in the conversation as a bottom-six NHL option. A full-time center job in Montreal is hardly a simple path, with fourth-line anchor Jake Evans signed for the next three years.
Still, Beck remains an easy recall when the Canadiens need a center who can plug into the fourth line and do his job. He has 28 games of NHL experience, averages 9:33 of ice time, and scored his first career goal against the Penguins last December.
The number that jumps off the page right now is his face-off work. In 15 games this season, Beck has won 58.7% of his draws, and if that holds, he looks like a player who can carve out a full-time NHL future.
Montreal’s schedule may give him the chance to do it sooner rather than later. The Canadiens open a back-to-back tomorrow night at home against Buffalo before heading to Washington to face the Capitals on Wednesday. With Xhehaj leaving practice today while dealing with the injury, Beck appears to be right there if the club needs another body.
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Montreals penalty killers handled every Buffalo man advantage in the game, and the recent trend now matters as much as the result itself. The Canadiens have strung together a run of successful kills over their last two games, a welcome answer after early-season trouble with power-play goals against had put extra pressure on the rest of the roster. [Read more 🡒]