In the last year of his contract, 25-year-old center Morgan Frost will want to prove himself in 2024-25. But has his time already run out with the Philadelphia Flyers? To me, the writing has been on the wall for a long time.
Frost & Tortorella Clashes
For starters, it’s not great when a player and his coach have had a rocky history. Since he was hired prior to the 2022-23 season, there hasn’t been anyone who head coach John Tortorella has liked to pick on more than Frost. From being compared to a toilet seat to being a healthy scratch for 11 games (when he was one of the team’s better players), it hasn’t gone particularly well for these two. It might be a sign of things to come.
Even when the Flyers’ center depth consisted of Noah Cates, Scott Laughton, Patrick Brown, Zack MacEwen, and Lukas Sedlak in 2022-23, Frost was still playing in the bottom six on a somewhat frequent basis until midway through the season. Already, that’s a bad sign of things to come.
But in the midst of that, when Frost followed some good games with some bad ones in Tortorella’s eyes, the coach had this to say: “You look at Frosty; I still think he’s up and down like a toilet seat as far as you see him coming, and then he dips.” Well, Tortorella certainly doesn’t mince his words when he wants to prove a point.
There’s nothing wrong with a coach being brutally honest, but it highlights Tortorella’s relationship with Frost. The now 25-year-old was an immediate victim of these antics. Even if some of it was deserved (and he got better following this tough love), this was even excessive for Tortorella.
Signing a two-year bridge contract in the 2023 offseason, general manager (GM) Danny Briere was essentially telling Frost that he had limited time to prove that he is a quality long-term member of the team. Signing yet another bridge deal at his age in 2025 (when the deal expires) just wouldn’t make sense—his time was already fading.
And yet, after just two games in 2023-24, Frost was riding the pine. Scratched for six of nine contests in October, this was about as dim of a start as you could have. This all eventually came to a halt as the season progressed, but it’s a sign that the relationship between Tortorella and Frost has still not been fully repaired. When forwards like Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, Tyson Foerster, and Scott Laughton had their bad moments (which weren’t infrequent), nothing ever happened to them. Would it surprise you that those first two players got eight-year extensions in the past few months? The coach and GM seem to be on the same page.
Briere Isn’t Making Frost’s Case Any Better
Based on the way he’s operating, it’s somewhat clear that Briere tends to feel the same way about Frost—he’s expendable until proven otherwise. The issue here is that the Orange and Black are strapped to the salary cap for the next few seasons, making a long-term deal in the 2025 offseason seem unlikely.
Related: Flyers’ 2025 Restricted Free Agent Contract Predictions
Just looking at their prospect depth, it was clear that the Flyers needed a center in the 2024 NHL Draft. Taking Jett Luchanko, a gifted athlete with playmaking upside, seems like a potential replacement for Frost when all is said and done. The Orange and Black have three first-round picks in a stacked 2025 center class, which furthers the belief that Frost may not be a Flyer for much longer—Briere loaded up for a reason.
With a lack of cap space, a lot of draft capital to improve the center position, and Frost not being locked up long-term, it seems like Briere is already in a good place if he parts ways with his relatively young centerman. Pretty much instantly, he could replace Frost’s services and perhaps even upgrade the position if he pushes hard enough. At this point, it just feels like an impossible battle.
Life without Frost
As of the 2024-25 season, the Flyers will need Frost on their roster to compete for the postseason, as he is the team’s only truly capable second-line center (unless Sean Couturier counts here, too). But what about after this upcoming campaign?
The Flyers can most certainly justify moving on from Frost if they go about it the right way. While there isn’t exactly a high supply of centermen (particularly young ones) on the trade block, Philadelphia has the pieces to get one of the big names off of the market. With plenty of quality draft picks, Frost himself, and another trade piece like Joel Farabee, acquiring a center who could take the Flyers to new heights is definitely in play.
In a hypothetical world where the Flyers go all-in on a center, they’d still have plenty of future draft picks to upgrade at that position and others, too. On the wings, the team is very strong—you have Matvei Michkov, Konecny, Tippett, Foerster, and the list goes on. Defensively, Cam York, Jamie Drysdale, Oliver Bonk, Emil Andrae, Carter Sotheran, and Hunter McDonald are a good young core. Between the pipes, Alexei Kolosov, Yegor Zavragin, Carson Bjarnason, and Sam Ersson all have starter potential (and perhaps on the higher end).
Even after the Luchanko pick, the Flyers need centers—he’s their only one under the age of 25 with more than bottom-six NHL upside, in my eyes. So, in this sense, replacing Frost is a must if the team wants to be competitive. Getting an immediate upgrade compared to a player like him isn’t entirely difficult if the Flyers emphasize it, either.
Frost is a talented player who hasn’t had it easy in the NHL. It’s possible his future lies in Philadelphia but it just doesn’t seem that way at this time. If not, perhaps that might not be the worst thing.