The Philadelphia Flyers are already fairly shallow at the center position and now they’re going to approach a puddle-like depth in the middle of the second round of the playoffs.
According to a report from The Phildelphia Inquirer’s Mike Sielski late Monday night, Flyers center Noah cates was seen on a cart in the depths of the Lenovo Center in Raleigh after Game 2 and was holding a walking boot for his right foot. The report also mentioned that a spokesman of the Flyers declined to comment on the status of Cates after the game.
No other details were provided in the report.
There was no definitive moment during Game 2 that it appeared obvious that Cates was injured. But if it is a foot injury, that could have easily happened by simply blocking a shot or getting tangled up around the net or just in some sort of weird collision.
This potential loss could be, well, not great.
Flyers losing Noah Cates could be a significant blow
In the eight playoff games the Flyers have had so far, Cates has played the seventh-most minutes among all forwards, putting him right in the middle of the lineup but his importance is so much greater than that and his four points. Cates has been leaned on to be a two-way force in this series more than he’s used to. Before Sean Couturier took his demotion to the fourth line extremely well and became this shutdown center god, that was Cates job and now, he’s getting more offensive opportunities to go along with his defensive responsibilities.
Cates is averaging the most offensive zone starts of any Flyer right now and it’s clearly showing up with his four points. Could it be better? Yeah, since it’s not like he’s some offensive dynamo. But, head coach Rick Tocchet is clearly relying a whole lot on his other centermen to get the job done defensively and then putting Cates in a prime opportunity — alongside Matvei Michkov, who needs those sheltered minutes — to score and play well on that side of the puck.
Without him, the Flyers are suddenly going to need to try and give those chances to score to someone else. Denver Barkey took his first full game down the middle for Game 2 and will most certainly stay there if Cates is indeed injured. The 20-year-old was centering a line with Alex Bump and Porter Martone and was somehow the most experienced player of the bunch.
But that still leaves them with a sizeable hole. If Cates is out for Game 3, the easiest solution would be to put Trevor Zegras back at center — since he was reunited with Christian Dvorak as his right winger on Monday night as Tocchet looked to get more offense going. Then the four centers going would be Zegras, Barkey, Dvorak, and Couturier. Which is just a somewhat funny group of players to plop down the middle for a must-win game in the second round of the playoffs.
Who replaces Noah Cates in the Flyers lineup?
Now, the question is if Cates is out and Zegras is back at center, who comes into the lineup?
The easy answer would be Garnet Hathaway, since he was replaced by Carl Grundstrom for Game 2 and the Swedish winger played well enough to earn another game. But, does that really give the Flyers enough offensive juice?
One of the main hopes is that Owen Tippett is healthy enough to get back into the lineup and then you can probably get overall better offensively in a Tippett-for-Cates swap. If the 27-year-old winger is good to go, it makes the decision much easier and the Flyers can keep that very good fourth line in-tact with Couturier, Luke Glendening, and Grundstrom.
No one knows what the top nine would look like, but that’s Tocchet’s job anyways.
Let’s just cross our fingers that that little walking boot was just precautionary.
