The Canadiens’ Beck leaves Montreal with a new contract and increased confidence

MONTREAL — After signing his entry-level three-year contract Tuesday morning, Owen Beck said he was approached every day at Montreal Canadiens camp as if it might be his last.

He then completed his pregame routine, ran 16 impressive shifts in a 5-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators, who beat the Canadiens 6-0 the preseason, held court with reporters in the Montreal locker room and eventually met informed with coach Martin St. Louis that he was released from camp and sent back to the OHL’s Mississauga Steelheads.

Mission accomplished.

Beck, who was elected the 33rd^approx overall left everything on hold in the 2022 draft.

Now he’s leaving Montreal after making the strongest possible impression – and not just with Canadians.

“He’s so smart out there,” a pro scout who first saw Beck play live at Bell Center on Tuesday told us.

“He’s definitely dynamic,” said Canadiens star Cole Caufield. “He makes plays in tight areas and he has a lot of skill and he works hard. There’s a bit of grit in his game too, so it’s nice to see that.”

We saw it – Beck didn’t retreat from the bigger, badder Brady Tkachuk in the third period in a scrum after the whistle.

We saw something else from Beck as we caught him away from the cameras and other reporters just before he was cut from camp.

“Did you pay attention to the things people were saying about you leading up to the draft? About whether you had enough offensive potential or not,” we asked.

“Of course,” he said, shrugging as if to draw attention to the large chip on one of them. “I don’t give a shit now. I thought I should be a first-round pick in the OHL draft as well.

“But like I mentioned to you earlier at camp, people underestimated my shot a little bit and it’s up to me to use it a little bit more.”

Beck will do just that — and more — with the Steelheads this season, assuming he stays healthy.

The confidence the 18-year-old takes with him to Mississauga will take him to new heights.

It grew with every day he spent in Montreal, but began to swell in Buffalo, where he stood out among the Canadian rookies at the rookie show.

We could feel it pouring out of him as he described his experience at the main camp just under a week ago, though he tried to hide it with a little humility.

“The best compliment anyone has given me is that I don’t look out of place,” Beck said at the time.

A more accurate assessment would have been to say he looks like home.

If the Canadians didn’t already have 16 forwards with NHL contracts, the idea of ​​Beck being a part of the team wouldn’t be remotely stretched.

The fact that Beck clearly belongs in his natural center position and nowhere else — he was very effective in the faceoff circle before going 4-0 with the Senators on Tuesday — actually worked against him. With Nick Suzuki, Christian Dvorak, Kirby Dach, Jake Evans and Sean Monahan already in the position, St. Louis conceded he needs to move at least one established center to the wing during the season.

But there the coach was impressed by Beck.

“He makes a lot of confident moves on the ice for a player,” St. Louis said. “He’s playing with some loot. He has some swagger about his game. Also plays with some grit. He’s a nice package.”

You could see the swagger at zone entrances – in the way Beck identified the small gaps in cover and snuck through them to create chances for his linemates – and certainly on the power play, where he went from nothing to a one something made -on-two rush and split the defense to net a shot in the third period of Tuesday’s game.

What was exciting about this particular game was how Beck realized he had the optimal conditions to make it.

“It’s my speed,” Beck said. “If I can catch the D playing the wing a bit, playing the kickout, then maybe I can get on my horse, go in the middle and catch them sleeping a bit…”

He made the read before he got the puck.

“Obviously your head is spinning all the way up the ice,” Beck explained. “And when (Rem) Pitlick hit me with the pass back there, I felt like I had a little bit of space and I was trying to squeeze through. Didn’t get the best shot there but put something in the net.”

Games like this throughout camp earned him his first pro contract and now Beck is ready to play them in a league where he has a lot more time and space at his disposal than at this level.

Beck said Tuesday morning that he’s become a better player within the limited time he’s been exposed to life in the NHL, that he’s learned a lot from St. Louis and its staff, and after learning it in Tuesday’s game Having shown, he said he learned a tactical lesson he can apply to score a much higher clip than last season, in which he managed just 21 goals and 51 points in 68 games.

“I think one of the biggest things is trying to get three guys on the ice very quickly,” said Beck. “It’s something that’s not totally foreign to me, but it’s a bit new to come here. Marty stressed it a lot, and I want to bring that back to Mississauga because a lot of defenders are very reluctant to walk in ice and ice in their own zone. So if you have a defender with you, you can pull it up and maybe have some space.

He’s leaving Montreal after earning a spot at the top of the list of potential Canadians, and that’s a lot more than most expected of him when he arrived.