While the 20-year-old has left formal classrooms behind, he spent a lot of time last season studying video with former Hab Paul Byron.
“Owen Beck is a 200-foot player,” Martin Lapointe, the Canadiens co-director of amateur scouting, said after the team drafted him. “Plays the right way. He’s a student of the game. He’s a good student at school. He does good things on the ice. He’s got A’s at school, he does A things on the ice and it reflects on his play.”
“It kind of gives you an idea of the (pro) routine,” Beck said Tuesday on the first day of his third development camp with the Canadiens in Brossard. “Frees up more of your time to be able to focus on your craft, taking care of your body and everything to prepare yourself as much as you can for the next day or the next week or your next game.”
Beck was hit hard into the boards during the first period of Friday’s scrimmage and didn’t return for the second period. The team said he suffered a lower-body injury.
Beck’s junior career is over now and he is expected to start next season with the AHL’s Laval Rocket. But it wouldn’t be a total shock if he can crack the Canadiens’ lineup — depending on what other moves GM Kent Hughes might make before the start of the season.
Beck said he has matured physically and mentally since the Canadiens drafted him and he sure looks like an NHL player now while wearing shorts and a T-shirt after being measured at 6-feet and a solid 194 pounds when development camp opened. He was listed at 5-foot-11 and 181 pounds when he was drafted.
When asked how he has most improved since getting drafted, Beck said: “I think everybody’s talking about the offensive jump or the offensive production increase. I think that’s come a long way. Playing in Saginaw was a big stepping stone for me. I’ve learned a lot of different rotations and patterns in the offensive zone and a lot of different ways to create offence. I think I’ve become a little bit more multi-dimensional as a player offensively.”
Beck is also very strong on faceoffs.
“I think just a little bit of everything,” he said when asked what he could bring to the Canadiens. “I think I’m a pretty well-rounded player. Just being able to play on both sides of the puck, play in any kind of role — whether it’s power play, penalty kill, or defensive-zone draws or defensive-zone situations, offensive-zone starts. A little bit of physicality. I think I bring a well-rounded aspect to the game and I think that can serve a team well.”
“He and I talked a lot this season when I was both with Peterborough and in Saginaw and I think it helped me grow my game a lot,” Beck said. “He’s never going to sugar-coat anything. He’s going to tell me how it is and at this level of hockey you got to expect that — 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.”
Is there anything Beck misses about going to school?
“I did enjoy school, but I’ve always enjoyed hockey a little bit more,” he said with a chuckle. I kind of just enjoyed being able to focus on just hockey.”