At last year’s Philadelphia Flyers rookie camp, it was Noah Cates playing the role of odds-on prospect favorite to make the big club. His successful late-season stint with the team gave him a leg up on his camp competition, leaving it up to him not to squander his advantage.

By the conclusion of the team’s two rookie games in Allentown, Lehigh Valley Phantoms coach Ian Laperriere — who was behind the bench for both games — made a prediction: he would never get to coach Cates in Lehigh Valley. Cates would go straight to the NHL.

“And I was right!” Laperriere crowed on Thursday at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees, New Jersey.

This year’s Noah Cates? In more ways than one, it sure looks like it might be Tyson Foerster, ranked the organization’s third-best prospect by PHLY earlier this week.

And now, he even has the coveted — and at least last year, prescient — Lappy seal of approval.

“Personally, I know things can happen, but I’m not expecting him back in the Valley,” Laperriere predicted.

Like Cates, Foerster thrived in a late-season Flyers recall, scoring seven points (three goals, four assists) in eight March games at the NHL level, impressing both fans and — more importantly for his roster hopes — head coach John Tortorella.

But it’s not merely the NHL stint that has Laperriere convinced that Foerster is poised to grab a spot in the Philadelphia starting lineup. It’s also the fact that Laperriere just looks at Foerster and sees an NHLer now.

“He’s thicker, I’ll give him that,” he said with a smile. “All credit to (Foerster), he stayed here all summer, trained like an animal, and it shows.”

Aside from a few weekend trips home, Foerster spent the entire summer in the Philadelphia area, living with Joel Farabee and training at the team’s facilities on a daily basis, working alongside head strength & conditioning coach Dan Warnke and assistant DeRick O’Connell.

It shows. No longer sporting baby fat like he did after being drafted in 2020, Foerster looks fitter and stronger than ever before. He’s remade his body into one that looks more than ready to hold up to the physicality of the NHL.

“You see it, we all saw it last year (too),” Laperriere noted. “He wants to prove to the organization that he’ll do whatever it takes to make the team.”

Foerster would have a strong NHL roster case merely on the strength of his work with Laperriere’s Phantoms in 2022-23, where he led the club with 48 points in 66 games, becoming one of Lappy’s most trusted players in the process.

“Oh, he had the swagger all year,” Laperriere recalled. “He carried the load, especially offensively.”

But it wasn’t just the point production that caught the coach’s attention. He watched Foerster become a significantly better player without the puck, as well.

Part of Foerster’s improvement was driven by his strength gains — Laperriere noted that Foerster’s shoulder surgery in late 2021 proved to be something of a blessing in disguise, because it gave the teenager time to begin the process of building himself up physically. But Foerster’s progression was just as much due to the mental side — namely, the development of his all-around game.

That’s why he thrived during his NHL stint, Laperriere argued. And it wouldn’t have been the case, he continued, had the Flyers rushed him to the NHL.

“When the Flyers called him up, he was a different player than we saw two years ago,” Laperriere explained. “He was managing the puck like a veteran out there. We all know he can shoot the puck. We all know he can make plays. But there’s more to it than (that). A lot of guys can shoot the puck and they can score but they can’t play in this league, because there’s other things around that. Tyson improved so much last year in that.”

Which brings us, at long last, to the biggest remaining question surrounding Foerster’s NHL chances: his skating. It’s the reason he slipped to the Flyers’ pick at No. 23 back in 2020; it’s the reason why many scouts around the league still have doubts regarding his upside. Where does it stand after three full years of strength training and technique adjustments?

Foerster, understandably, bristles at the familiar criticism.

“I think I proved myself a bit last year. I don’t think my skating is bad at all,” he contended. “I think I’m pretty good skater now, and you know, I want to show that.”

And Foerster is right — he has improved his skating from where it was in 2020. To the point where he’s a burner, the type of forward who will push back opposing defensemen out of sheer terror due to his ability to blast by them at will? Of course not. But during his eight-game NHL audition, Foerster rarely was behind the pace of play, despite the jump in competition.

How was he able to keep up? Laperriere had two explanations: the stylistic adjustments that Foerster made to his game, and good old fashioned hard work.

“If you’re a bad skater — and he’s not a bad skater, but he’s not a smooth skater like the other kids you’ll see out there, he’s not gliding out there – (you have to be one who) works. He’s a worker,” Laperriere explained.

That work ethic won’t magically turn Foerster into a plus skater at the NHL, of course. But it does make Laperriere confident that his skating won’t hold him back.

“I’m not worried about the skating,” he said. “He’ll never be (Travis Konecny). TK’s a hell of a skater and everything. But (Foerster) works. So he’s gonna get to the same point probably at the same time because of his work ethic. I don’t worry about that at all.”

That said, a spot in the Flyers’ lineup isn’t going to be handed to Foerster, especially given the team’s depth on the wing. All of Konecny, Owen Tippett, Wade Allison, Bobby Brink and Garnet Hathaway are natural RWs, and that’s not even counting Joel Farabee and Scott Laughton, who will both also probably slot into wing spots in the Philadelphia top-nine. Foerster will have to earn it.

But he enters camp having put himself in prime position to do so. He stood out in the AHL last season. He made a strong impression on the NHL coaches. And he’s coming off a big summer. As rookie camp begins, he’s deservedly the prospect with the best chance to grab an NHL job.

“They say, ‘Control what you can control,’ and he did,” Laperriere noted. “He trained like an animal all summer. He stayed here. He did everything right. So he can go to bed at night and say, ‘I did everything I can. Now I’ve got a lot of work in front of me, but I did all the work this summer. I’m ready to go.'”

In other words, he’s following the model set by Noah Cates, just last year.

“Just watching him off the ice — he works his tail off every single second,” Foerster said of the second-year pro he hopes will soon be his full-time teammate. “Even in the gym, when nobody’s doing anything, he’s stretching or something like that. Just watching him and learning off him is good.”

Just as with Cates, Foerster’s drive is undeniable. And it’s why Laperriere is convinced he’s about to be two-for-two in terms of pre-camp roster predictions.

“(Foerster) wants to be here, and to never come back to me — and I don’t take that personally,” Laperriere said with a smile. “I’ll be happy for him.”

“That’s for sure my goal. Yeah, I think I’m ready,” Foerster confirmed.

The next three weeks — starting with Friday’s first rookie game — will determine if he’s right.

Day 1 Notes

• Emil Andrae confirmed that even if he fails to make the Flyers out of camp, he’ll be able to stay in North America and play for the Phantoms in the AHL. Despite the adjustment to the transfer agreement between the NHL and Swedish Ice Hockey Federation, Andrae received permission from his SHL club (HV71) to stay with the Flyers organization even if he is reassigned to the minors.
• Jon-Randall Avon was the only player to miss the Day 1 on-ice activities. “I think he had a couple more lower-body tests,” Laperriere explained. He was noncommittal regarding his availability for the weekend’s games.
• Expect Bobby Brink to get a ton of ice time this weekend. Laperriere is excited to see him now that he’s fully recovered from the hip surgery that hampered him all of last season, and wants to give him every chance to make an impression.
• Laperriere raved about Elliot Desnoyers after practice. “For me, the closest kid detail-wise and maturity-wise (to being an NHLer), it’s Desy. I think he is the closest.” He noted that if Desnoyers doesn’t make it, it’s because he’s not quite physically ready yet. But mentally, in Laperriere’s mind, Desnoyers is already there.
• The Flyers announced on Thursday that Mark Recchi will be the newest inductee to the Flyers Hall of Fame, with the ceremony being held on January 27 against the Boston Bruins, with whom Recchi finished his NHL career.