reckoning
Registered User
- Jan 4, 2005
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Does anybody remember this player. He was the #2 draft pick overall in `77 and would`ve won rookie of the year if not for Mike Bossy`s record-setting season. Despite being stuck on the hapless Colorado Rockies he quickly gained a reputation around the NHL as the most promising defenseman in the game over his first two seasons. In fact in `78-`79, Scotty Bowman said he played better against Montreal than any other blueliner in the league that year and chose him as one of defencemen to play for Team NHL in the Challenge Cup.
He looked like the ultimate package. Size, speed, strength, toughness. Impossible to get past in his own zone, yet also had the offensive talent to quarterback a power play; his slapshot was incredible. Then in his trird season, Don Cherry, in an effort to give the Rockies some depth, traded him to New York for five players. Now he was on a contender in a high-profile city. In the book A Season In Hell which chronicles that Ranger season, it mentions how the Ranger management and players all saw Beck as the saviour of the franchise. Everybody assumed he would be the dominant defenceman of the 1980s.
So what happened? I remember him always playing well whenever I saw them but he was never a Norris candidate and couldn`t help New Yorks playoff woes. Why did retire so early? I don`t recall hearing of any career-ending injury, but his physical style of play may have taken its toll.
He looked like the ultimate package. Size, speed, strength, toughness. Impossible to get past in his own zone, yet also had the offensive talent to quarterback a power play; his slapshot was incredible. Then in his trird season, Don Cherry, in an effort to give the Rockies some depth, traded him to New York for five players. Now he was on a contender in a high-profile city. In the book A Season In Hell which chronicles that Ranger season, it mentions how the Ranger management and players all saw Beck as the saviour of the franchise. Everybody assumed he would be the dominant defenceman of the 1980s.
So what happened? I remember him always playing well whenever I saw them but he was never a Norris candidate and couldn`t help New Yorks playoff woes. Why did retire so early? I don`t recall hearing of any career-ending injury, but his physical style of play may have taken its toll.