Former Hab’s hiring was another example of the emphasis executive VP of hockey operations Jeff Gorton has placed on developing players.
“He took a lot of my video, went through it, watched it a ton,” Beck said about Byron. “He would take clips that he liked, didn’t like, and kind of just break down what he sees, ask me what I see and kind of give me suggestions that translate more to pro. … I think it helped me grow my game a lot.”
The days when Rob Ramage (the director of player development) and Francis Bouillon (a player development coach) were basically alone when it came to player development with the Canadiens are gone.
“I think one of the things I wanted to do and we wanted to do as we moved forward was to bring the organization into more of a modern place,” Gorton said before the start of the 2022-23 season. “I think it’s been pretty well documented to build an analytics department, player development, to have a little more of an emphasis there. Just to maybe get up to speed a little more into modernized hockey a little bit. That was sort of the first goal, sort of speak.”
Hiring Byron was a smart decision.
“I was his teammate just a year ago,” Canadiens centre Jake Evans said last season about Byron. “But even when I was playing with him he was kind of a coach to some of the younger guys — especially a guy like me.”
“I got to live with a guy who’s got over 600 games going into my first year of pro,” Mailloux said. “It was really good to pick his mind and pick his brain a bit. You look at him, you look at his career, he started in the minors and worked his way up.”
“As (former Canadiens defenceman) Terry Harper told me: ‘Never trust a forward,’” Ramage added with a grin. “We’re trusting Paul. … We put Paul on (Beck) and Owen embraced everything Paul threw at him and his game just took off.”
Beck appreciated the fact Byron wouldn’t “sugar coat” comments about his play.
“He’s going to tell me how it is and at this level of hockey you got to expect that,” Beck said. “You got to be able to take it. It’s not like he’s ripping me to shreds or anything. But he’s not going to hold back if he sees something because it’s only going to make me better in the long run.”