When Noah Cates made his debut for the Philadelphia Flyers as a 22-year-old in 2022, there wasn’t much fanfare surrounding the 2017 fifth-round pick.
The best-case scenario at the time was for him to become another version of Scott Laughton; a gritty, defensively responsible forward who could play 4th line minutes in his own zone, and not get caved in while doing so. Laughton, it must be said, had much higher pedigree coming out of the OHL as a first-round pick, he was always going to get a chance to thrive in the NHL lineup, Cates was never guaranteed such an opportunity.