Surprise, Surprise: Flyers' Noah Cates And Linemates Among NHL's Most Effective Units

Philadelphia Flyers coach John Tortorella hasn’t always been the head of the Noah Cates Fan Club.

But after making Cates a healthy scratch for a handful of games earlier this season, Tortorella is now in the center/winger’s corner.

Cates, 25, has transformed himself into a valuable player, someone who is hard on pucks and has suddenly found a scoring touch.

Fact is, Cates, known for his strong defensive play and penalty-killing work, and his linemates have surprisingly become one of the NHL’s most effective units.

When the calendar turned to 2025, Cates’ young line – which includes wingers Tyson Foerster, 22, and Bobby Brink, 23 – had been averaging 3.16 expected goals-for and 1.41 expected goals against per 60 minutes, according to moneypuck.com. That differential – plus-1.75 – is, by far, tops on the Flyers and the eighth-highest in the NHL among lines that have played together for at least 15 games this season. The line’s expected goals-against rate is tied for seventh-best in the NHL.

Overall, the NHL's top line, according to Money Puck, is the Carolina trio of Seth Jarvis, Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov, which has a plus-3.27 expected goals differential per 60 minutes in the 22 games they played together. The second-best line is Tampa Bay Lightning forwards Brandon Hagel, Anthony Cirelli and Nikita Kucherov. They had a plus-2.72 expected goals differential per 60 minutes.

Cates played a lot of left wing earlier this season but now has found his niche at center.

Tortorella spoke in glowing terms of Cates’ development after a recent practice. He said the 6-foot-2, 194-pound Cates is playing with unbridled confidence, that he has stepped out of his comfort zone and improved his overall game.

Cates, a fifth-round selection in the 2017 draft, has seven points (five goals, two assists) in his last seven games heading into Thursday. The Minnesota native already has more goals (seven) than he scored all of last season (six) and is playing the best hockey of his NHL career, now in his third full season.

He’s “maybe stepping outside of himself and trying to develop more of a personality as a player,” Tortorella told reporters, adding he’d be hard-pressed to find someone that’s as “strong on the puck as Catesy’s been here for the past month. I think he’s kind of surprised himself. You never know when it clicks in players. I’m proud of him. Very quiet kid, and out of the lineup at the beginning of the year. He takes it and he just gets himself ready and I think has established himself as a really good player offensively and defensively for us right now.”

For more than a month, Cates has centered Foerster and Brink. You can argue that during that span, they have been the Flyers’ most consistent two-way unit, combining for 13 goals and 29 points in 17 games, including time spent on the power play.

The Cates line has spent much more time in the offensive zone during its five-on-five shifts.

“We’re getting in on our forecheck and setting up other lines for success, too,” said Cates, who has a plus-9 rating and is playing like he won’t be a healthy scratch again for the foreseeable future.

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