Noah Cates was a pleasant surprise, but goaltending and power play prove to be sore spots for Flyers in 2024-25

After eight months and 82 regular-season games, the Flyers’ season comes to an end on Thursday night in Buffalo against the Sabres.

Here are three positives and three negatives that the Orange and Black can take and build on down the road.

Considering that Cates started his NHL career as a winger, then shifted around to center and back — he did it, too, in college at the University of Minnesota-Duluth — and started this season as a healthy scratch, he was a huge positive.

The forward and his linemates, Tyson Foertser and Bobby Brink, have become a trio that can shut down top lines while putting the puck in the net. On Feb. 25, they stopped Sidney Crosby’s line and scored three times while playing more than nine minutes against them.

Nicknamed “Coots Jr.,” Cates has quickly built a strong 200-foot game and solidified his standing as a middle-six pivot after posting a career high in goals (16). He is one of just five Flyers with a positive plus-minus (plus-2) entering Thursday’s finale.

» READ MORE: Flyers’ line of Noah Cates, Bobby Brink, and Tyson Foerster is clicking on this trip

Let’s start with the good news: Entering the last day of NHL action, the Flyers’ power play is not dead last, as it was the previous three seasons (two under former coach John Tortorella and assistant Rocky Thompson). In fact, it’s 2.4% better than last season overall, and under interim coach Brad Shaw it has been 22.2% effective — which helped the Flyers avoid laying a massive goose egg for the entirety of March.

But, the unit still resides near the league’s basement, with the third-worst percentage (14.6) and just a lack of confidence with the man advantage overall. Of the 16 teams that have qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs, 11 rank in the top 16 in terms of power-play percentage, with the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Winnipeg Jets No. 1 (28.9%). The Flyers’ power play is something that needs a major overhaul come the offseason.

Aside from the Cates line — which is an impressive example of playing sound, fundamental hockey — the Flyers have also seen chemistry forming among the trio of Matvei Michkov, Travis Konecny, and Sean Couturier.

» READ MORE: 5 big-picture questions for the Flyers as they wrap up their season

Although Couturier felt after Tuesday’s loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets that his line needs to create better chances, he sees the potential for strong puck possession and sustained offensive zone time. It’s a fair assessment, but the center looks to have found his spot — as the responsible, defensive mind on the line — between the Flyers’ top two scorers.

The goaltending needs to be better. Hands down. Entering the last day of the season, Money Puck has Sam Ersson last in the NHL out of 102 goalies in Goals Saved Above Expected at minus-19.9, Ivan Fedotov fifth-worst at minus-13.6, and Aleksei Kolosov tied for 17th from the bottom at minus-8.1.

For reference, Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck leads the way at plus-39.6.

Can some of the onus be on the skaters? Absolutely. (See the number of odd-man rushes regularly presented to the Flyers’ goalies.) But none of the three was good enough or consistent enough, each finishing with a save percentage well below .900.

And let’s talk about the elephant in the room: having three goalies was a complete head-scratcher from Day 1. Kolosov might have the most talent of the group, but he’s not ready for the pace and congestion of the NHL and has the worst save percentage of the trio (.867).

Fedotov has played well at times after a rocky start and, like Michkov, is still getting used to everything in North America. He has rebuilt his game under goalie coach Kim Dillabaugh, despite Couturier saying out loud what everyone knew: “There’s a few times that it almost seemed like Torts had quit on him.”

» READ MORE: The Flyers have a major goalie problem (again) and there’s no ready-made fix out there in free agency

And what about Ersson? Statistically, the Flyers’ No. 1 netminder has put together his worst season as an NHLer, with a 3.14 goals-against average and .883 save percentage. But there is some hope inside the Swede, who has a strong mental makeup and is confident in his abilities between the pipes.

Ersson dealt with multiple lower-body injuries, but if he can consistently play like he did from the holiday break to March 3 (.912 save percentage) — similar to a stretch last December-January — it would only be beneficial to the Flyers.

Maybe this is a positive, too? Although there are several negatives when discussing Tortorella’s coaching methods and style, some players did progress under him.

Tortorella is gone now, fired on March 27, for an accumulation of things. His demanding ways led to benchings and healthy scratches — including rising star Michkov, who dealt with both as a rookie — and some of his other head-scratching moves left an interesting taste with some of the players.

Tortorella saying he wants players to take risks but then benching, scratching, or sending them down (i.e., Emil Andrae) made no sense. Giving up on Fedotov after a few games, a guy who spent a year out of hockey, as Couturier alluded to, was borderline.

Scratching Couturier, his captain, without explanation, was never going to go over well in the room. It seemed as if he never explained why to players, either, as Brink, Morgan Frost, York, and others expressed publicly.

Was he the right guy to coach the Flyers? Maybe when he was hired by then-GM Chuck Fletcher, who never wanted to use the word rebuild. But when Fletcher was fired, everything shifted, and as a coach obsessed with winning, the match failed.

Regardless of who the coach will be, and The Inquirer has learned that one guy it will not be is Denver’s David Carle, there is young talent on the Flyers.

That starts with Michkov, 20, who is in the Calder Trophy chatter after putting together one of the best rookie seasons in team history with 24 goals and 60 points. He has shown high-end vision and compete, and appears to be a player who will drag this team into the fight for the next decade.

Brink, 23, has tied his career high in goals (11) and points (38). Foerster, 23, is tied with Konecny for the team lead in goals (24), giving him back-to-back 20-goal seasons, in addition to his strong 200-foot game. Newcomer Jakob Pelletier, 24, has finally found a home on the third line when he has — finally — gotten minutes (another Torts head scratcher there).

Defenseman Jamie Drysdale, 23, found his legs and role as a rover over the second half of the season, and Andrae, 23, is — also finally — getting consistent time in the NHL.

And then there are the guys on the cusp of cracking the NHL. Jett Luchanko, 18, started with the Flyers and, after wrapping up a solid Ontario Hockey League campaign, is now with Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League. Alex Bump, 21, just had a monster year leading Western Michigan to the program’s first NCAA championship and also just joined up with the Phantoms.

Oliver Bonk, 20, and Denver Barkey, 19, are once again storming their way through the OHL playoffs with London. And between the pipes, 19-year-olds Carson Bjarnason and Egor Zavragin forecast a bright future. Bjarnason, who had the fourth-best save percentage in the Western Hockey League (.913), is now with the Phantoms. Zavragin was a star in the Kontinental Hockey League this season, posting a .912 save percentage in the regular season and .913 in the postseason for SKA St. Petersburg.