OTTAWA | Called up urgently Friday night, Owen Beck will indeed play his first game in the NHL on Saturday night, when the Canadian will try to stop a streak of two losses by visiting the Senators.
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“Let’s just say the last 24 hours have been pretty crazy. I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly,” Beck said at the end of morning training.
We can understand the young man of 18 years to have remained surprised. It’s not every day that an NHL squad uses one of its emergency recalls to bring in a player from the junior ranks.
With the exception of Michael Sergachev, who started the 2016-2017 season in Montreal and whom the Habs recalled for the last game of the regular schedule, we have to go back to Olivier Michaud.
Recalled on October 26, 2001, the Shawinigan Cataractes goaltender played, four days later, the third period of a game in Edmonton.
“I had dinner planned with my dad tonight. Yesterday I called him to tell him that I had to cancel it. He asked me why. I told him it was because I was going to play my first game in the NHL. He became overjoyed. He was so happy, ”said Beck, who expects more than twenty relatives and friends to travel to the federal capital to attend his professional debut.
A good impression
Although Beck received the call in his capacity as a center player, Martin St-Louis refused to confirm whether he was going to use him in this position. However, we know that Nick Suzuki, Kirby Dach and Christian Dvorak haven’t been at their best for some time.
“I don’t necessarily have any expectations. He will have to experiment with this level of play. I am certain that the more the game progresses, the more he will improve,” indicated the head coach of the Canadiens.
“It’s not something you can prepare for. He has to rely on his experiences, what he went through during training camp, during preseason games and during the World Junior Championship, he continued. He has to have fun and avoid taking it too seriously. »
The Canadiens’ second-round pick (33rd overall) last June, Beck turned a lot of heads this fall. First at rookie camp, held in Buffalo, and at main camp.
“I came to camp with the goal of leaving a good impression and building on that,” he said.
It worked. Enough for Kent Hughes to make him sign his NHL entry contract before the start of the campaign.
Under Suzuki’s wing
Leaving Peterborough, where he lines up with the Petes of the Ontario Junior Hockey League, Beck joined the Canadiens in the evening on Friday. The team leaders, led by Nick Suzuki, made sure he felt welcome and quickly integrated into the group by taking him out to dinner.
The captain of the Canadiens was 20 when he began his NHL career, but he can understand what an 18-year-old can feel a few hours before his first game on the Bettman circuit.
“There is a lot of apprehension when you play your first match. We wanted to make sure he was comfortable with us, we wanted to help him as best we could. I hope he will be able to sleep well this afternoon. »
To make room for him in the formation, which will field 12 attackers and six defenders, Chris Wideman will be left out.
Friday, St-Louis had already confirmed that Samuel Montembeault would face the shots of the Senators.