Cates Moved to Wing Before Injury
The Flyers learned earlier this week that 24-year-old two-way forward Noah Cates would be out for six to eight weeks with a broken foot.
Coming off a consistently strong rookie season in 2022-23 in which he received some votes both for the Calder Trophy (NHL Rookie of the Year) and the Selke Trophy (best defensive forward), Cates was expected to take on an increased offensive role with two-time Selke finalist (one-time winner) Sean Couturier returning to the lineup.
The season to date has been an offensive struggle for Cates (1g, 3a in 21 games played) and he even went through a spell where he was uncharacteristically turning pucks over and getting beaten in some coverages. He nipped the latter issues in the bud but still scuffled to get going offensively.
Tortorella, who has said that he considers Cates to be one of his most trusted players on the team, eventually dropped Cates to a fourth-line center role for four-plus games as he moved Ryan Poehling up in the lineup.
For a portion of last Wednesday's game and all of Saturday's match against the New York Islanders, Cates moved to right wing. He'd been a winger for most of his college career and broke into the NHL with the Flyers late in the 2021-22 season playing left wing on a promising young line with Owen Tippett on the right and Morgan Frost in the middle.
Cates showed considerable promise both as the F1 (first forechecker) and as a player with some touch around the net as he posted five goals and nine points in 16 games. Last year, with Couturier out for the entire season, first-season head coach Tortorella moved Cates to center at the start of the campaign. He was given the task of checking other teams' top lines. Cates handled it surprisingly well and was fully deserving of a bit more consideration for postseason awards than he received. The Flyers' struggles in the standings held down his vote totals.
Only rarely last season did Cates skate shifts on a wing, and most of those were on the power play. In a rare shift reunited with Frost and Tippett, Cates scored a power play goal in Winnipeg during the final game before the NHL All-Star break. Frost and Tippett earned the helpers.
More recently, in this past Saturday's game in Elmont against the Islanders, Cates had one of his best games during the current season. He mostly skating right wing on a unit with Poehling and Joel Farabee. Now it turns out that he'll be out a month-and-a-half up to two months.
Under that projected timetable, he'd return to play either in mid January or the end of that month. In the meantime, the Flyers will have to work around it. Cates' forechecking work and two-way awareness were missed in Tuesday's loss to Carolina and portions of Thursday's game against the Devils.
What's Next: Home-and-home versus Penguins
The Flyers' next two games will see them go head-to-head with the archrival Pittsburgh Penguins. The archrivals will clash on Saturday at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh with a rematch at the Wells Fargo Center on Monday.
Last year, the Penguins missed the playoffs. They are off to a similar start to the Flyers, going 11-10-1 thus far. The Pens have actually been a better road team (6-4-1) than at home (5-6-1).
The Flyers got swept (0-3-0) by the Penguins in last season's three-game season series. It marked the first time in the histories of the respective franchises that the Flyers did not muster even one regulation tie (let alone a win) in their season series meetings with Pittsburgh.
