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Montreal Canadiens Recall Owen Beck On Emergency Basis

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The Montreal Canadiens have made a bit of a surprise move, recalling prospect forward Owen Beck from the OHL’s Peterborough Petes on an emergency basis. Per the team’s announcement, Beck will join the Canadiens in Ottawa, where he will possibly make his NHL debut.

Beck, who will turn 19 years old in a week, is one of the Canadiens’ more highly-regarded prospects. Beck was the first pick on day two of the 2022 NHL draft, 33rd overall, and was ranked in the first-round mix by multiple publications.

Scouts raved about Beck’s responsible two-way game, mature character, faceoff acumen, and possible offensive upside. While Beck has had a slow start in Peterborough after a blockbuster mid-season trade, he scored 41 points in 30 games this year for the Mississauga Steelheads.

Beck had an impressive training camp and preseason in the fall and later earned his way onto Canada’s Gold Medal-winning World Junior Championship team, after being initially excluded from their main lineup. While this recall is hardly great news for the Petes, who paid multiple players and draft picks to acquire Beck, it does speak to the high opinion the Canadiens organization seems to hold of their recent second-round pick.

The Canadiens have suffered significant injuries to their forward corps, and this recall comes after earlier today when the Canadiens’ three established centers, Nick Suzuki, Kirby Dach, and Christian Dvorak, each missed practice for treatments. If one of those three centers is unable to play for the Canadiens in their next game, Beck could see time down the middle.

Otherwise, he could shift to the wing and give the Canadiens the opportunity to play with six defensemen. The team had been operating with seven blueliners for many recent games, but with Joel Edmundson possibly injured as well, the addition of Beck gives coach Martin St. Louis new options with how to structure his gameday lineup.

The NHL-CHL’s agreement for emergency recalls gives Beck a maximum of five games to play with the Canadiens. Since the team has two games and then a break, and since the agreement stipulates that he cannot miss more than one OHL game, it’s likely that Beck will be back in Peterborough in short order.

Cole Caufield Out For The Season With A Shoulder Injury

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Jan 27: Caufield will undergo surgery on February 1 in Colorado, according to Eric Engels of Sportsnet.

Jan 21: The Canadiens have struggled offensively this season and scoring goals just got a lot harder as the team announced that winger Cole Caufield suffered a season-ending shoulder injury and will undergo surgery in the near future.  There is no timeline for how long the recovery period will take with an update being expected after the medical procedures are completed.

Caufield played in Thursday’s loss to Florida and was a full participant in practice on Friday so the announcement comes as somewhat of a surprise.  TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie notes (Twitter link) that the injury isn’t something that just happened but has instead been lingering for the past several weeks.  The 22-year-old is tied for 11th in the league in goals this season with 26 while TSN noted earlier this week that he’s tied for eighth in the league in goals since Martin St. Louis took over behind the bench a little less than a year ago.  Caufield has over 21% of Montreal’s goals this season with the team ranking 28th in the league in goals scored heading into Saturday’s action.

Caufield is set to become a restricted free agent this summer without salary arbitration eligibility.  His case is one of some intrigue given how productive he has become under St. Louis while GM Kent Hughes indicated earlier this week that preliminary discussions are underway with a desire to lock him up on a long-term contract.  However, with his first season being a short one having burned his first entry-level year after his college campaign, Caufield only has 123 career regular season contests under his belt which is considerably less than what most players that sign a long-term, big-money agreement after their first contract have.

In a corresponding roster move, the Canadiens announced (Twitter link) that forward Alex Belzile has been recalled from AHL Laval.  The 31-year-old has 13 career games of NHL experience with Montreal over the last two seasons and has 13 goals and 12 assists in 29 games with the Rocket this season.  Even with this recall, Montreal only has 11 healthy forwards on their active roster and they are expected to dress seven defensemen tonight against Toronto.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Latest On Sean Monahan

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  • LeBrun also spoke on Insider Trading about Montreal Canadiens center Sean Monahan. LeBrun reported that the Colorado Avalanche are a “team to monitor” when it comes to a potential trade fit for the veteran pivot. The Avalanche have long been rumored to be seeking help down the middle and could opt for the injured Monahan, who has scored 17 points in 25 games in Montreal, as a cheaper option than higher-end choices such as Ryan O’Reilly or Bo Horvat.

Latest On Joel Edmundson

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  • While Montreal Canadiens veteran defenseman Joel Edmundson could be a name to watch heading into trade deadline season, any conversations might need to be put on hold. The Canadiens announced that Edmundson would not return to the team’s contest against the Detroit Red Wings tonight. The blueliner, who has another year left on his deal at $3.5MM, has suffered a lower-body injury that knocked him out of the game. We’ll have more information on Edmundson’s status as it becomes available.

Montreal Canadiens Reassign Cayden Primeau

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Jan 25: Primeau has been loaned back to the AHL after only appearing in one game, a 20-minute relief appearance last week. Allen is ready to return to action.

Jan 9: The Montreal Canadiens have recalled Cayden Primeau under emergency conditions, announcing that he will back up Sam Montembeault this evening. Jake Allen is out on a day-to-day basis with an upper-body injury, despite playing all 60 minutes on Saturday.

Primeau, 23, is no stranger to the NHL. The young netminder has seen action in each of the last three seasons, playing a handful of games each year as the team dealt with goaltending injuries. Last year, in 12 appearances for Montreal, he posted an .868 save percentage and went 1-7-1. Overall, he has an .874 in 18 NHL games.

Unfortunately, things haven’t been going much better at the minor league level this season. Primeau has an .890 in 13 games with the Laval Rocket, which would easily be the worst of his career should it continue. Despite being drafted in the seventh round in 2017, he became a top goaltending prospect for the organization after two incredible seasons at Northeastern University.

Development has slowed since then, but the organization still has plenty of faith in him. Primeau signed a three-year one-way contract in September that carries an average annual value of $890K. The back-loaded deal will be paying him $1.1MM by the 2024-25 season when the team hoped he would be the full-time backup (at least). Even if this is just a short stint while Allen recovers, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Canadiens give Primeau a chance to play, given their investment in him.

It should be noted every time the Canadiens suffer an injury at the position, that they do not have another goaltender signed to an NHL contract. Primeau, Allen, Montembeault, and the injured Carey Price are the entire depth chart, meaning they’re just another minor injury or illness away from being forced to make an additional transaction of some sort.

Sean Monahan Skates In Non-Contact Jersey

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  • While the Canadiens lost a key forward in Cole Caufield today, they’re closer to getting another one back as TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie relays (Twitter link) that center Sean Monahan took part in the morning skate in a non-contact jersey. The 28-year-old has missed the last six weeks with a foot injury but had gotten off to a good start before that with 17 points in 25 games.  A pending unrestricted free agent, Monahan is expected to be one of Montreal’s top trade chips heading into the March 3rd trade deadline.

Mike Matheson Fined $5,000

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  • Montreal Canadiens defenseman Mike Matheson has been fined $5,000 for his interference on Florida Panthers forward Eric Staal in last night’s game, which became a bit of a circus. Ninety penalty minutes were handed out between the two teams, though none of them were for directly tied to the incident in question. Matheson and Matthew Tkachuk would fight later in the game.

Latest On Juraj Slafkovsky

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  • With 2022 first overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky now likely shut down for the season with a knee injury, some have questioned Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes’ decision not to give Slafkovsky any time in the AHL. Hughes told reporters in a press conference today that the organization didn’t want concerns around Slafkovsky’s development to come primarily about offensive production, as he feared might happen if the Slovak forward spent extended time with the Laval Rocket. Instead, the organization opted to keep “a close eye” on him and keep him focused on holistic development with Canadiens coaches. Hughes said that an AHL loan in the near future wasn’t out of the question for Slafkovsky, but that’s now out of the question given his injury.

Latest On Cole Caufield

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Jan 18: General manager Kent Hughes added some more fuel to the Caufield rumor mill today, telling reporters at Canadiens practice that the team is interested in signing Caufield to a longer-term extension. The news makes the comparison to Boldy’s seven-year, $7MM cap hit contract even more relevant, and it will surely remain in the back pocket of both parties as they continue to negotiate a contract.

Jan 17: After falling to 15th overall in the 2019 NHL Draft, the 22-year-old Cole Caufield now finds himself the focal point of the Montreal Canadiens’ rebuild.

The ups and downs of a chaotic 2021-22 season limited Caufield’s offensive production in his first NHL campaign. With coaching uncertainty and an improved locker room vibe, though, Caufield has excelled in his sophomore season. His 26 goals lead the team by a mile, and his 36 points are just one behind linemate Nick Suzuki.

Now, the team is lining up to sign one of its most crucial contracts for the next few seasons. TSN’s Darren Dreger said on Tuesday’s edition of “Insider Trading” that the Canadiens have had preliminary extension talks with Caufield’s agent, Pat Brisson. Dreger noted that the conversation started around a month ago.

Coming out of college to join the team at the end of the 2020-21 season, Caufield is now in the third and final season of his entry-level contract. In the event that contract talks between the two parties turn less than agreeable, Caufield is not eligible for arbitration.

The new management regime of Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton has largely been heralded since taking over the Canadiens, giving the team a bright future soon after plummeting from contention over the last 24 months. They haven’t been tasked with signing any big contracts yet, however, and this is a high-stakes first test.

Fellow 2019 first-round selection Matt Boldy just signed a seven-year, $49MM contract with the Minnesota Wild that could be comparable for Caufield and Montreal. However, in the eyes of Caufield’s camp, that’s likely a starting point, not an end goal. Caufield has shown greater goal-scoring ability than Boldy and is playing further up in the lineup on a struggling team. It wouldn’t surprise many to see a long-term extension for Caufield start with a greater cap hit than $7MM.

Montreal Canadiens Will Not Trade Sam Montembeault

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When looking around for goaltenders that might be of interest at the trade deadline, one might settle on the Montreal Canadiens. The team gave Cayden Primeau a three-year, one-way contract in the fall that suggested he would soon be installed at the NHL level, but still have Jake Allen and Sam Montembeault taking those spots.

Montembeault, the younger of the two, is only signed through 2023-24, so had drawn some speculation as a potential trade target. The 26-year-old goaltender has been strong for Montreal this year, posting a .912 save percentage in 18 appearances, much better than his older counterpart. Perhaps it is because of that performance that Kent Hughes, speaking with reporters including Eric Engels of Sportsnet, explained that he considers Montembeault a part of the team’s future and will not trade the netminder.

There have been flashes of this before from Montembeault. A third-round pick by the Florida Panthers in 2015, he burst onto the NHL scene a few years later and was impressive. The Panthers went 4-0-1 in his first five appearances, before he eventually went through some rookie struggles. It was the same in 2019-20 when he played 14 times in the NHL, showing ability but no consistency. Last year with the Canadiens, Montembeault was left out to dry many nights, playing behind a team that was destined for the first-overall pick. His .891 save percentage in 38 appearances hides some encouraging development that has carried over to this season.

Now, the question is whether or not Hughes’ comments about Montembeault mean anything specific for Allen, who is set to start a two-year extension next season. He has struggled with injuries this year and has an .892 save percentage (easily the worst of his career) in 27 games. The veteran netminder will turn 33 before the new deal kicks in, and will carry a $3.85MM cap hit through 2024-25.

While Montreal isn’t expected to challenge for the Stanley Cup next year, it’s not like they have plans for a years-long rebuild. Not with some of the young talent that is already in place. That leaves a complicated goaltending situation, especially for next season when Primeau will no longer be waiver-exempt. If Montembeault is part of the long-term solution, it’s not clear how the time share will play out over the next few years, as they transition toward playoff contention once again.

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