Montreal Canadiens fans don’t get a lot of breaking news in the month of August, so here at A Winning Habit, we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 31 prospects currently in the Habs organization. Each player was carefully deliberated by our writers and ranked accordingly. Today, we’re onto the 4th-ranked player, Owen Beck.
The Montreal Canadiens held the first overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, and used it to select Juraj Slafkovsky. They also grabbed Filip Mesar late in the first round of that draft, but they also had the opening pick in the second round.
With a night to sleep on it, the first pick of the second round is debated, not quite as much as the first overall pick in the draft, but quite a bit as teams and fans look at their lists and realize there are some highly ranked players still available.
The Canadiens elected to take Owen Beck from the Mississauga Steelheads with that 33rd overall selection just over a year ago. Beck was coming off a season where he scored 21 goals and 51 points in 68 games. While his offense was fine, it was the other end of the ice where he excelled.
Beck was known around the OHL as one of the top defensive centers in the league. He is terrific positionally, always in the right spot to shut down the opposition and can quickly force a turnover and transition from defense to offense in a hurry.
A smart, two-way center who is a great penalty killer is a great player to have on any team, but Beck has shown there could be more to his game. He exploded offensively to begin the 2022-23 season which was his 18-year old campaign in the OHL. While the Steelheads were not a fantastic team, Beck did his best to keep them afloat by scoring 17 goals and 41 points in 30 games to begin the season.
He was traded to the Peterborough Petes at the OHL trade deadline for two young players, two second round picks, a third round pick and a fourth round pick. The Petes would go on to win an OHL championship with Beck scoring eight goals and 16 points in 22 postseason games while playing flawless defensively and killing penalties.
He was also a last minute call up to the World Junior team in Halifax, and played the final three games of the tournament after Colton Dach, Kirby’s younger brother, was injured on New Year’s Eve. He had one assist in those three games, all elimination games, and helped Canada win gold on home ice.
Heading in to next season, Beck has an outside shot at making the Canadiens roster for opening night, but is still a teenager. He is most likely headed back to the OHL for his 19 year old season and should be a dominant force in Junior hockey. He would also have a great chance of representing Canada at the World Juniors yet again and if the Petes are not contenders, he will be dealt to another team for an even bigger return if he is scoring at a high rate.
While it may be tempting to keep him around the NHL next season, one more year of Junior where he can continue to develop his defensive game and grow more confidence in his offensive game before he goes pro.
He projects to be a safe, defensively reliable and smart center who will surely be able to play a fourth line and penalty killing role at the NHL level. The question will be about how much offense is he going to be able to bring against the best competition on the planet.
If he doesn’t develop much of an offensive game, he could still be a penalty killing specialist and a shutdown center. If he can develop a little more offensively, he has a chance to be a great third line center that can play both ends of the ice at a high level or possibly even a two-way second line center that is elite defensively.
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