Saturday morning, the Montreal Canadiens announced that defenseman Kaiden Guhle and forwards Patrik Laine and Kirby Dach would be missing from the lineup against the New York Rangers due to lower-body injuries. Guhle was listed as out 4-6 weeks while Laine and Dach were said to be out on a day-to-day basis.
As a result of the injuries, both Owen Beck and Joe Veleno will make their regular-season debuts on Saturday night. Beck has been called up from the Laval Rocket on the terms of an emergency recall.
Le défenseur Kaiden Guhle (bas du corps, 4 à 6 semaines) et les attaquants Kirby Dach (bas du corps, évaluation quotidienne) et Patrik Laine (bas du corps, évaluation quotidienne) ne participeront pas au match de ce soir. L'attaquant Owen Beck a été rappelé du Rocket de Laval…
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) October 18, 2025
Despite it being so early in the season, Owen Beck seemed eager and ready to jump at the opportunity during the pre-game media availability. “Somebody said to me things can change in two, three games, but you know, I wasn’t really expecting it to happen that quickly, so it’s pretty exciting.”
Beck being recalled is no surprise, considering his effectiveness and improvement over the course of training camp. In three games with the Rocket this season, Beck has one goal and one assist.
“I was really happy with what I did at training camp. Regardless of the decision [to get sent down], I was happy with my performance, and I was just trying to work on my game down in Laval as much as I could in that short amount of time.”
This is not the first time Owen Beck has been emergency recalled. In fact, his first NHL game was in such a situation back in 2023 while he was still a member of the OHL’s Peterborough Petes. Beck also played 12 regular-season games last season for the Habs.
Tonight’s game will be special for Veleno as this will be the Montreal native’s first time playing a regular-season game at the Bell Centre as a member of the Montreal Canadiens.
With the lineup being shaken by quite a few members, the line rushes at practice looked a little different. The Caufield-Suzuki-Slafkovsky and Newhook-Kapanen-Demidov lines stayed the same, while the new lines became Bolduc-Veleno-Beck and Anderson-Evans-Gallagher.
The Matheson-Dobson D-pairing stayed the same, while Struble-Hutson and Xhekaj-Carrier filled out the rest.
It sucks to see a buddy go down,” mentioned Arber Xhekaj on fellow defenseman Guhle, “but he wants us to play hard for him, so that’s what we’re going to do.”