Noah Cates doesn't have to wonder anymore.
He knows his game now. He knows it belongs in the NHL. And he knows it'll be a part of the Philadelphia Flyers for the foreseeable future.
The 26-year-old center signed a four-year, $16 million contract extension to stay in Philly last week, after he clicked on the Flyers' hard-checking line of himself, Tyson Foerster, and Bobby Brink; reached a new career-best 16 goals in the process; and settled in as one of the locker room's leading voices following the trades of longtime veterans Joel Farabee and Scott Laughton.
Cates is a part of the puzzle the Flyers are trying to put together now, and a long way from the press box, where he sat as a healthy scratch to begin this past season.
He's proud of that.
"It's not where I wanted to be after last season and starting this past year," Cates told the local media in a video call about his extension on Wednesday. "So to just kind of keep my head down and find my game, find the effective way that I can play, and do it consistently and do it for most of the season was great.
"Obviously, it set me up for this contract and the future and being a part of this, so super happy with how I stuck to it and believed in myself."
Because there were no promises not all that long ago.
Cates was a fifth-round draft pick by the Flyers in 2017 and skated all four years of college at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, while making a run with Team USA at the 2022 Winter Olympics in between.
By the time he finally signed his entry-level deal with the Flyers toward the end of the 2021-22 season, the team was in shambles.
Claude Giroux, as the captain and face of the team, had been traded away, the rest of the roster was spiraling with interim coach Mike Yeo only there to get them to the finish line, and Cates was jumping in as an unknown.
He had his older brother Jackson there within the organization as a point of reference at the time, but pro hockey, Cates recalled, was a mystery he was going to have to figure out on the fly.
He took to it, though.
Cates' two-way game was a match for the defensive-minded and high accountability style that former head coach John Tortorella wanted to instill in the team when he arrived that summer. The early results saw Cates get established as an NHL regular with a 13-goal, 38-point run where he skated in all 82 games for the 2022-23 season.
The following year for Cates was marred by injury and inconsistency as he flipped between center and the wing, but then he moved back into the faceoff circle this past season with Foerster on his left and Brink on his right once he was put back into the lineup.
It was right where all three of them needed to be.
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Even through struggles and turmoil elsewhere (i.e. Tortorella's firing and the disaster stretch that preceded it), the Foerster-Cates-Brink line was continually the Flyers' most consistent at moving the puck downhill, generating a 58.3 percent expected goals rate, per MoneyPuck, which led all combos on the team that spent a minimum of 150 minutes together.
Cates said he had a brief talk with new head coach Rick Tocchet to start getting to know one another, but as for where that line might go next under the new bench boss, training camp late in the summer will be where that process really starts.
No matter what, though, Cates is going to be there for the long haul. He doesn't have to wonder anymore.
"I know where I'm at and what I am as a player," Cates said. "Just sticking with it, it turned out to be the best thing for me."
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