Noah Cates may be the odd Flyer out

Every season brings changes to a roster, whether through free agency, retirement, buyouts, a trade to ship players out or simply a draft pick who is ready to hit the big time. Flyers fans have encountered all three situations the last few seasons with the additions of Sean Walker, Erik Johnson, Garnet Hathaway and Matvei Michkov and the subtractions of Marc Staal, Ivan Provorov, Kevin Hayes and Sean Walker. But if you\'re considered to be a top six forward or top four defenseman, you seem to have a little bit more security regarding your status.

When you\'re in the bottom six, and particularly in fourth line purgatory, sometimes you can be a revelation one season and then on the outside looking in the next. Which brings us to Noah Cates. A fifth-round pick of the Flyers back in the 2017 draft, Cates finished up his college career with the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 2021-22. The same year he had a stint with Philadelphia, registering nine points in 16 games and knowing the Flyers owned the rights to his brother Jackson, who had a cup of coffee with the team. In 2022-23, Cates (Noah that is) was one of the few Flyers not in John Tortorella\'s crosshairs or doghouse, doing every little thing away from the puck correctly to avoid benching or healthy scratches. He had 38 points in 82 games, not jaw dropping numbers for a rookie but a solid first full year.

But last season had some bumps, including breaking his foot in a Nov. 25 game against the Islanders and not returning until Jan. 15 in St. Louis. Cates ended up with 18 points in 59 games but, again, avoiding any defensive lapses or brain cramps that Tortorella smells a mile away. So two seasons in and it looked like Cates would be inking another Flyers contract after this season when he became a Restricted Free Agent (RFA) alongside Cam York, Tyson Foerster and Morgan Frost. Now, just over a month into this 2024-25 season, that is a lot less certain given a handful of factors.

The first factor is Matvei Michkov. Having an elite, high-end talented forward on the team obviously means a lot of middle and bottom six players are pushed down a notch in the depth chart. Cates was almost a lock on the fourth line with Garnet Hathaway and Nic Deslauriers for most of last season when he was healthy. He also had some time with Cam Atkinson, Sean Couturier, Joel Farabee and Bobby Brink last season, finding himself with a crop of skaters with a bit more offensive mojo. But now Cates is now fighting for a spot in the lineup. It\'s a spot that, without Michkov last season, was a bit more of a guarantee. Add to that the emergence of Ryan Poehling as a forward who might be able to play third line minutes (currently with Michkov and Anthony Richard) and the numbers game begins to lean away from favoring Cates. At least with Cam Atkinson playing as poorly as he did last season, Cates could have seemingly jumped over Atkinson in the depth chart. That\'s not happening with Michkov.

Another factor was Cates didn\'t make much of an impression during the preseason with a goal and an assist. Nor was he given much of a chance to make an impression in just four games. Time was given to Jett Luchanko (four games) and he stuck with the club for a few regular season games as Tortorella figuratively drooled over the prospect. Meanwhile Anthony Richard (six games), Olle Lycksell (five games) and even Rodrigo Abols (five games) had exhibition playing time to see what they had to offer. Cates didn\'t play in the season opener in Vancouver. He played the next night in Calgary but then didn\'t get back into the lineup until the home-and-home against the Capitals 10 days later. Reccently Richard was called up in Poehling\'s absence and Lycksell could be called up from Lehigh Valley should one or two Flyer forwards get hurt. Again more are seemingly moving up the depth chart while Cates remains status quo.

A third consideration is how the lineup will look moving forward the next little while. A lot of questions remain, namely with how strongly Emil Andrae has looked, do the Flyers simply keep eight defensemen when Cam York returns to the lineup and go from there? Throw in the fact the Flyers are already in the midst of using three goaltenders (Sam Ersson, Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov) and haven\'t made a concrete decision about who (if anyone) goes back down to Lehigh Valley. If going with eight blueliners and three goaltenders, you\'re left with fewer options up front as that\'s essentially half of your 23-man roster. So the idea of an extra forward waiting in the wings becomes even more unlikely.

Cates has 19 points in the last 71 games he\'s played, registering one assist in 12 games this year. And his underlying metrics have taken a bit of a tumble so far this current campaign.

xG% CF% HDCF% SCF% Faceoffs % 2023-24 60.75 55.02 63.04 55.56 45.45 2024-25 35.06 47.87 37.21 41.18 57.14

You can see that while it\'s only 12 games, it\'s still almost a quarter of what Cates played last season. And outside of looking pretty good in the faceoff circles, he hasn\'t had that spark of driving play up ice that made him so dependable last season. The drop in expected goals and high danger chances for is a problem as both are roughly down one-third (or worse) of what they were in 2023-24. He wasn\'t a healthy scratch in his rookie year and in 16 games thus far he\'s sat for four of them. In short he\'s playing less. And he\'s doing far less with that reduced playing time to right his own ship.

So, with the Flyers 16 games into the regular season, it appears that the only thing Noah Cates currently knows is he\'s at best on the bubble or worst possibly finding himself out of a job. If somebody had told Flyers fans that Noah Cates might be ahead of Morgan Frost on the depth chart 16 games into in 2024-25, one might have believed he was off to a great season. But even being ahead of Frost currently isn\'t saying much at all, sort of like being the runner-up in an axe fight. In the offseason this writer compared the RFA contracts that Foerster, Frost, York and Cates could expect next season and believed Cates\' deal would be the easiest of the four to secure. Now that doesn\'t look nearly as promising as it did just five months ago.

There\'s a lot of hockey left to be played, and Cates has time to make a case for himself. But the runway he had in front of him to develop into a surefire Flyers forward looks far shorter than it did last season. If he doesn\'t end up making the cut here, the Flyers could consider perhaps moving Frost and Cates in a package for either prospects, picks or both. It\'s doubtful a top-six NHL center is going to be returned to Danny Briere if both were shipped out together. But it\'s possible the tandem, who are both going to turn 26 next spring, have simply done all they can do as members of the Flyers. The one thing that\'s for certain in this league is that nothing is for certain. And Noah Cates might be finding that out the hard way.

Talking Points