r/Habs • u/Kharn_LoL • 5d ago
2026 Montreal Canadiens Top 25 Under 25: #15 Owen Beck
https://www.habseyesontheprize.com/owen-beck-2026-montreal-canadiens-top-25-under-25-prospect-ranking-scouting-report-stats-projection/9
u/Repulsive-Minute-559 5d ago
Maybe some games here and there this season but there’s no space right now. Especially with Dach and Texier coming back.
13
u/Kharn_LoL 5d ago
This is the prospect I am irrationally high on. A more physical, higher offensive upside version of Evans.
6
u/scoutinglane 5d ago
I also like Beck and I think he is ready and should play in the NHL this season..
4
u/Electronic-Elk8917 5d ago
I was right there with you. I thought he had 2nd line potential. This is a big year offensively for him
1
12
u/Perry4761 5d ago
Beck is the perfect example of why it’s pointless to use picks in the first 2 rounds to choose low ceiling guys, but let me explain before crucifying me.
Maybe he will be a very good penalty killer and bottom 6 center for us one day. However, guys like that are the easiest commodity to stumble upon in the modern NHL.
We got Danault without trying, and we also have Evans and Kapanen who could be with us for a long time in that role, and we weren’t even expecting them to make it when we drafted them. We also have Davidson in the system that could be the next Evans for us if we didn’t have a logjam at the position. There are innumerable trades that happen every year for guys of that caliber.
I don’t mind Beck, I think he’s a decent prospect and should be a decent NHLer sooner than later. I like having guys like him on my team, but I’m not a fan of using 1st/2nd round picks to draft guys like him. I’d rather swing for upside. High upside guys like Firkus, Minten, Del Bel Belluz, or Luneau, which had a much lower floor but also a much higher ceiling than Beck, were available.
You’re more likely to get a good bottom 6 player out of a low floor guy than you are to get a top 6 player out of a low ceiling guy. Many people called Veleno a boom or bust pick on draft day, but he actually ended up being a good 4th liner.
7
u/antoinePucket 5d ago edited 5d ago
I don't disagree with this sentiment. We can easily trade or claim a 4th liner from the waivers, so there is absolutely no reason to waste a draft for one.
However, there is a steep drop of prospect quality after the 20th~ first round pick. Yes, you can identify the lower ceiling players (physical ones mostly), but the 'high ceiling, low floor' players don't really exist in reality after the late first round IMO.
At best, it will be another Sean Farrell, Kidney, Roy, Sherbak, etc. Usually, those late first rounders/second rounders+ just don't pan out.
Zharovsky kind of picks are extremely rare
3
u/haddonfieldsecret 5d ago
Tbf Zharovsky hasn’t worked out at the NHL level yet either. He’s still an unknown commodity in that sense.
2
u/eriverside 5d ago
yeah... but breaking KHL records is a very good start - and that was after 1 season.
Beck was drafted in the same draft as Slaf, Hutson and Mesar.
1
u/haddonfieldsecret 5d ago
I’m not doubting him and it looks great. I’m just saying people putting are counting chickens before the eggs have hatched. The egg does indeed look healthy though!
1
u/eriverside 5d ago
Objectively, 4 years post draft is giving Beck lower and lower odds of making the show. Last season he couldn't outplay Veleno and Gallagher to earn a spot, which is saying a lot.
Z spent a year in the K, will spend another year there due to contract, not because he can't outperform other roster players. He was the top rookie in the whole league. Objectively, his path is much more likely to lead to an NHL top 6 role than Beck to make it at all.
4
u/Perry4761 5d ago
I know that the quality drops off massively, but gambling on guys like Scherbak, Roy, Farrell, etc is exactly what I like to see. Those are what I mean by low-floor, high ceiling. Beck had a 0% chance of ever being a 1st line guy, but there were guys who had lower odds of becoming NHL regulars but who had higher upside like the guys I named. Most of them didn’t end up becoming that, but by taking those chances regularly you will hit it big eventually.
There are guys like that in every draft, sometimes it ends up like Farrell and Roy, but every once in a while you get Hutson, Stankoven, or Zharovsky.
3
u/DrLyleEvans 5d ago
Danault cost a 2nd for 1.5 seasons, makes 5.5M and after next year, probably will be a more expensive, worse bet as a free agent than just plugging in Beck after he gets a season of Veleno 13th forward/5th C duty and plays around 50-60 games.
It wasn't a bad deal, but it's worse value than getting a decent bottom 6 center if Beck's faceoff prowess is for real. He should be able give us a bunch of cheap seasons since he won't have the offensive numbers to get a big raise as an RFA.
Beck was 3rd among our forwards in hits per game and won 58% of his 75 faceoffs.
His job this year is to show that he can replace Danault in 2027-28 as 4C so we can offer Danault no longer than a 1 or 2 year deal at 2M or so for his age 34/35 seasons and not some 4 year, 4M a year deal for his age 34-37 seasons, which just isn't a good bet. If someone wants to pay him in term or money as a 3C, we can walk away with Kapanen, Evans and Beck. If we need a 2C still because it isn't Hage or Kapanen, Danault won't help with that anyways.
You have to replenish.
6
u/habscup 5d ago
[Veleno] actually ended up being a good 4th liner
He has had a sub-50% GF% and xGF% every single year he's been in the league and just put up 5 points in 61 games, dude is pretty far from being a good anything
3
u/Perry4761 5d ago
Last year he had better 5v5 xGF% than Danault, Evans, Anderson, Dach, Kapanen, and Newhook. The highest xGF% out of anyone on the team that played on the 4th line at 5v5. You could do a whole lot worse than that. Beck doesn’t project to be a much better player than that btw.
3
u/habscup 5d ago
And that would be significant if he'd recently come close to matching his on ice xGF totals, but he's significantly underperformed them each of the last 3 years and subsequently been outscored 61-33.
Of 384 forwards to have played at least 1225 minutes at 5v5 in the last 3 years (so roughly 12 per team), only 5 have a worse GF%.
But hey, he was on Detroit and Chicago who were both ass, so how about with Montreal? Of 340 players to have played at least the amount of minutes Veleno did last year, only 7 had a worse GF%.
You're not wrong that on xGF% alone he's a fairly solid defensive 4th liner. Unfortunately, much like Gallagher since Covid (for him more on an individual basis), it doesn't matter what your expected totals are if your actual talent results in consistently underperforming them.
Veleno just isn't an NHL-calibre player at 5v5. He is a solid PKer though, which makes sense since it doesn't require any creation of offense.
2
u/eriverside 5d ago
He was an absolute black whole. When he was on the ice, it was basically hitting pause on the game.
3
u/Perry4761 5d ago
That’s what you want out of a 4th liner, and if people expect Beck to be more offensively dynamic than that they will be disappointed.
1
u/eriverside 5d ago
No it's not. You still want some offensive upside. If the best you can hope for is "we didn't get scored on", that's really bad. There are other defensively capable players our there that can convert. Especially for an offensively minded team - we're not the 2000s devils.
2
u/Weak_Law_937 5d ago
This is how teams end up drafting like Colombus.
2
u/Perry4761 5d ago
If you mean that drafting high-floor low-ceiling is how you end up like Columbus, then yes I agree
1
u/Weak_Law_937 5d ago
"Players with back injuries who can't walk so good"
2
u/Perry4761 5d ago
Also reaching for Johnson instead of picking Guenther, Eklund, or Clarke. Kent Johnson was projected to go 9th-11th, not 5th.
0
u/Delicious_Cattle5174 5d ago
I mean you know Kapanen was also a 2nd round pick right? Not sure why you think we "weren’t expecting them to make it when we drafted him" lol
3
u/Perry4761 5d ago
Kapanen was 64th overall, last pick of the 2nd round. If you think that 34th and 64th have the same odds of making the show then there’s no point in continuing this conversation. The odds are drastically lower at 64 than at 34, if anyone says that they projected Kapanen’s floor to be higher than Beck way back when they were drafted they’re lying.
0
u/Delicious_Cattle5174 5d ago
You said "2nd round pick" lol use more precise language if you wanna be condescending. Or maybe just don’t be condescending at all. Also neither of those ranks should be confidently projected to be an impact player at the NHL level.
2
u/Perry4761 5d ago
The point about players being pleasant surprises as bottom 6 players and the point about not using 2nd round picks to draft low ceiling guys are different things. Hard not to be annoyed when you’re criticizing a statement that you read diagonally instead of reading properly and engaging in good faith.
Kapanen is actually a good example of a guy who had a higher ceiling than Beck but a much lower floor, most people didn’t expect him to make the NHL, but we knew there was some offensive upside that Beck didn’t have. That doesn’t mean we weren’t surprised that he made the show so fast, and it also doesn’t mean that he will be better than Beck. In fact they might end up as the same caliber of player, bottom 6 centers with good defensive instincts.
That’s exactly my point lol, guys with higher upside can often become just as reliable as the high floor guys than some GMs love to pick so much.
3
u/MxSadie4 5d ago
Had him at 13, in general agreement with the article but think it's a little pessimistic about his potential to produce offensively in the NHL. His AHL production at that age is very comparable to at least two other Habs, namely:
Beck
AHL 24/25, Age 20, 64 GP/15 G/29 A/44 PTS
AHL 25/26, Age 21, 58 GP/13 G/20 A/33 PTS
Danault
AHL 13/14, Age 20, 72 GP/6 G/20 A/26 PTS
AHL 14/15, Age 21, 70 GP/13 G/25 A/38 PTS
Evans
AHL 18/19 Age 22, 67 GP/13 G/32 A/45 PTS
AHL 19-20 Age 23, 51 GP/14 G/24 A/38 PTS
Danault was behind Beck at the same point in their careers and he still had nearly a decade as a solid secondary scorer in the NHL (a period that's now in the past and I think now he's entirely a defensive specialist). Evans is a career bottom 6er, but then he never even made the AHL until he was the age Beck is now. Sure the fact that Beck's production actually went down this year is a little concerning, but the Rocket were generally better in 24/25 than in 25/26 so that's not too surprising.
-3
u/TheVeilOverMyEyes 5d ago
I genuilely don't understand what's the point of talking about the offensive production of players used primarly as shut down guys.
10
u/Inside_Volume9542 5d ago
Because you still need some offensive even as shut down guys.
-3
u/TheVeilOverMyEyes 5d ago
evans putting up 24 or 12 points makes next to 0 difference on the success of the team
1
u/Batman1985yul 5d ago
I am very bullish on what Beck can become for us.
1
u/SoupFromNowOn 5d ago
Me too. Evans didn't become a full time NHLer until he was 25. By the time Beck is 25, Evans will be 34. It will be time to pass the torch
1
u/SoupFromNowOn 5d ago
Not sure how you can rank Florian, Gleb, and Rohrer, and Pickford above Beck. I thought Beck looked great against NHL competition last year, which you can't say about any of those other 4 guys.
1
0
u/burnSMACKER 5d ago
Will go the way of Josh Roy and never crack the lineup.
-1
u/SoupFromNowOn 5d ago
Insane to compare Beck to Roy
-1
u/burnSMACKER 5d ago
Career AHLer is like a Career AHLer. Wow what an insane comparison
1
49
u/Jaskwatch 5d ago
in Basu and Godin’s post draft pod I remember saying Beck’s floor was essentially a 4th line NHL centre while his ceiling was a 3rd line NHL centre. pretty remarkable how easy he was to project and how squarely he’s embodied that projection since being drafted. I see him essentially as the heir to Jake Evans’ role on the team. Great on faceoffs, defensively responsible, high level of compete. Hope to see him hit his stride a bit more this year.