At this time last year, Lucas Beckman was defending the cage for Rousseau-Royal de Montréal-Laval in the M18AAA Development League. A year later, he is the number one goalie of one of the best teams in the Maritimes Quebec Junior Hockey League (QMJHL).
• Also read: The 20 best Quebecers for the 2025 NHL draft
And he is partly responsible for the success of the Baie-Comeau Drakkar at the start of the 2024-2025 campaign. The goalie from Montreal won 13 of his 18 starts, in addition to maintaining an excellent efficiency percentage of .919 and a goals against average of 2.33.
A dazzling progression for the man who is considered Quebec’s best goaltending prospect ahead of the next National Hockey League (NHL) draft.
“What I like about him is that he is always omnipresent and there are no distractions around him,” said Drakkar head coach and general manager Jean-François Grégoire, in a telephone interview. “It’s difficult to make a projection because there are too many imponderables, but what I know is that he’s a good goalkeeper.”
The one who has been at the helm of the Côte-Nord team since the 2020-2021 season did not hesitate to entrust the semi-circle to Beckman, despite his 17 years. For him, his colt had the tools to take on this role even if he only played nine games in the QMJHL last season, after his recall by his midget club after the holidays. His calm in front of his cage convinced him to give him a chance.
“Of course the sample was small with nine matches, but we had confidence in his means,” he said. “We didn’t want Lucas to keep one match in five or one match in six.”
That’s why Grégoire shipped 20-year-old veteran Charles-Edward Gravel to the Saint John Sea Dogs before the start of the season.
The best of a beautiful vintage
Beckman is proving him right. He ranks first in the league, tied, for wins and is in the top ten in the league in terms of efficiency rate and average.
His impressive statistics are propelling the 6’2″, 195 lb athlete to the top of the players at his position from Quebec, in view of the next NHL auction.
Could he become the first local goalie to be drafted in the first two rounds since Zach Fucale and Philippe Desrosiers in 2013?
“There are so many imponderables,” Grégoire tempered. “Lucas, he’s a great goalkeeper for us, but for the National League, is he a great enough goalkeeper? He’s not a 6’4” guy. But basically, he’s a good goalkeeper who has great skills. He has the tools.”
Beckman shouldn’t be the only one to hear his name called at the next NHL auction. After years of lean times, the 2025 vintage could be one of the best in 15 years.
Samuel Meloche of the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, Gabriel D’Aigle of the Victoriaville Tigres, Louis-Antoine Denault of the Quebec Remparts and Vincent Gladu of the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada are all names to remember at the quarter-season in the QMJHL .
“We knew it was a good crop of goalkeepers coming when we did the draft in 2023. So far, they are all meeting expectations. The other general managers would surely say the same thing, but when the guy is doing the job at 17, it’s fun to have him for so long,” analyzed Grégoire.
Development to be reviewed
However, Quebec is no longer the hotbed of goaltenders that we knew in the 1980s and 1990s. Fewer and fewer goaltenders from here are drafted into the NHL and reach the next stage.
Regarding this drought, Grégoire offers a meaningful analysis.
“It’s a very personal observation, but I would say that one of the elements is that we put young people in specific positions too early. We don’t develop athletes, we put them in the goals and they remain there as novices, atoms, peewees. For me, a goalkeeper must be a good athlete at the core. If we look at the Europeans, they recommend multisport at a young age and they will touch on a lot of positions before choosing one. They won’t do it at 7-8 years old,” argued the man who has been behind the bench of a QMJHL team since 2014.
“There’s a lot of goaltenders who, just seeing them skate to their net, you see they’re not good skaters. At the end of the day, when the game is going so fast, you can’t just be a “blocker of puck”. You have to have fast legs and good reflexes.”
Two qualities that Lucas Beckman can boast of possessing and which risk propelling him among the best in his position at the next NHL selection session.
