Much has been made of the plethora of different combinations the Philadelphia Flyers could deploy in their top-six forward group.
Russian phenom Matvei Michkov joins a group that already includes breakout forward Owen Tippett, two-time NHL All-Star Travis Konecny, former Selke Trophy winner Sean Couturier, and rookie standout Tyson Foerster.
Noah Cates and Joel Farabee, two forgotten Flyers forwards who are achieving veteran status in their NHL careers, are often left out of that equation.
But, the success of Cates and Farabee, especially when they play together, is equally as important to the Flyers as the success of Konecny, Michkov, and the other high-flying forwards.
For most of the 2023-24 season, the Flyers failed to find a third line combination that was effective. Couturier, Morgan Frost, Konecny, and Owen Tippett held down the fort in the top-six almost all year with Foerster, and sometimes Farabee, mixing in to help.
Cam Atkinson and Bobby Brink were mixed bags throughout the season, as Atkinson’s effectiveness completely vanished after the NHL All-Star break in January and Brink dealt with ebbs and flows in his consistency as a rookie playing in the big leagues for the first time as a regular.
Atkinson is now gone after being bought out by the Flyers and subsequently signing with the Tampa Bay Lightning, and Brink has returned on a two-year contract with the expectation that he makes the Flyers’ roster outright once again in 2024-25.
Should Michkov, Konecny, Tippett, and Foerster all assume or reprise a role in the Flyers’ top-six, Cates, Farabee, and Brink will have to take over bottom-six duty.
Farabee, and Brink especially, just aren’t fourth liners at the NHL level. They’re too talented offensively and, truthfully, aren’t good enough defensively to play that kind of role, which usually requires playing shutdown minutes defensively at some point.
Conversely, Cates was able to do this at a high level when playing alongside Ryan Poehling and Garnet Hathaway—a trio that was inarguably the Flyers’ best in the last six weeks of the 2023-24 season.
But, head coach John Tortorella likes Cates better as a center. The 25-year-old is less “static” when playing in the middle of the ice, where he can maximize his relentless motor, board play, and stick skills to create and deny chances.
However, Cates isn’t going to replace Poehling as the fourth line center, especially when the two were better together than apart.
Instead, Scott Laughton, who played third line center, is a better candidate to move down and over to wing.
This would allow the Flyers to have a fourth line of Laughton, Poehling, and Hathaway–three of the Flyers’ best penalty killers and most responsible forwards in their own zone.
By extension, Tortorella can maximize Cates’s potential by pairing him with Farabee and Brink.
If we go by the numbers, Cates and Farabee played exactly 153 minutes together at 5-on-5 last season, per Natural Stat Trick. In those minutes, they out-attempted their opponents 162-99, controlling 62.07% of the shot share.
In the same amount of time, they out-scored opponents 7-4, out-chanced them 77-45, dominated high-danger chances 37-14, and scored five high-danger goals to their opponents’ zero. That’s pretty good, right?
When adding Brink to the equation, shots were 98-70 (58.33% of shot attempts), goals were 4-3, chances were 45-39, high-danger chances were 19-12, and high-danger goals were 3-0. Still pretty good, albeit slightly worse than Cates and Farabee with any other forward on the ice with them.
By sticking with this trio of forwards, Tortorella and the Flyers would be able to get the most out of a player like Cates while regulating ice time for Farabee and Brink. Farabee racked up a career-high 22 goals, 28 assists, and 50 points for a reason last year, but when the going got tough, he and a number of other Flyers tailed off substantially.
If we account for an electric first half and a dead-silent second half and go somewhere in the middle, yes, Farabee is probably a 45- or 50-point player at the NHL level. Brink, albeit still developing, is probably in the same boat.
In a dismal 2022-23 season, Cates, too, showed that he can perform at that level, even with only 16 games of NHL experience heading into that year.
If the Flyers are able to get 40 points out of each of these three on the third line whilst also out-playing opponents, that would be a massive success and a revelation for the future.
