Morgan Frost needed this year to be a big year. There is no mistake that the former first-round pick was on the verge of being yet another Philadelphia Flyers top prospect that eventually found himself away from the organization or buried in the minors because successful development didn’t happen fast enough.
At 23 years old, Frost came into this season knowing that he needed to show something. Anything to stick around and be part of this young core that the Flyers were hopefully building at the time (maybe Chuck Fletcher didn’t do it on purpose, but he brought in some good and young players). The Aurora, Ont. native even recognized how he got away with a lot of mediocre work ethic in junior hockey and it translated to the start of his career.
“To be honest, I think I got away with playing kind of lazy in junior hockey,” Frost said early last season. “Up here, you don’t have nearly as much time with the puck. Everyone is so good. The lanes close up real fast. It’s also a lot tougher in the NHL to get the puck back when you are playing without the puck. I’m not going to lie. It’s been a lot of hard work. There are things I still want and need to improve but I think it’s getting there.”
And that kind of showed throughout the previous 77 NHL games before this season. There wasn’t that quick-thinking that a center needs and the general alertness and awareness were issues.
Well, thank goodness we can finally be positive in a player review because Frost finally displayed some of that skill we saw when he was a teenager and he produced.
It does feel somewhat like a miracle that a player who in 55 games, scored five goals and 16 points just last year, went on to be fourth on the Flyers in scoring with 46 points (maybe that’s not saying much) and be just one stupid goal away from hitting a 20-goal milestone.
Throughout the season you could see him coming alive offensively and get that spark back to make plays and just keep up with the pace. Like he admitted, it has been a lot of hard work to just shave off those milliseconds and not pause with possession so often (like he did in his rookie year) and hopefully he will just continue to grow into the offensively-charged center we all projected and hoped he would be.
Now, the points are nice, but when it comes to some underlying 5-on-5 play, there is more work to be done.
Frost’s 5-on-5 on-ice numbers were no doubt affected by being a member of the 2022-23 Philadelphia Flyers. His on-ice shot attempt percentage, high-danger shot attempt percentage, goals for percentage, and expected goals percentage (so all of them, essentially) ranked him in the middle among his teammates. Just nothing really special or significant, but just showed someone that gave up more than he gave on the ice.
It is especially significant that Frost had the softest deployment on the Flyers this season. His 61.75 offensive zone start percentage led the entire team, so he was given an advantage to keep possession and get shot attempts off for his team, but still, the Flyers were slightly at a disadvantage when it came to controlling the play when Frost was on the ice. Still, the team was better off when he was out there compared to some other folks.
Relatively, considering that a fellow young center like Noah Cates got slightly less points than Frost, and was right around him in terms of on-ice numbers, all while being the defensive center for the Flyers this year with a 43.01 offensive zone start percentage (only Patrick Brown had a lower number among forwards) – Frost has some work to do.
The deployment that Frost got might be why, if we delve into some of his charts, he appears to be solid defensively.
Both in offense and defense, the Flyers were a better team when Frost was on the ice. A slight uptick in offense, getting more chances closer to the net and feeding the right side of the point; and a general improvement defensively, with more focus around the net, led to Frost not being detrimental to the general suckiness of the Flyers this season.
It is so very slight that it might not matter – and the Flyers were still BAD offensively when Frost was on the ice – but it does at least provide some positive thoughts.
Back to being positive! Only Travis Konecny this season produced more with what he was given than Frost’s 2.02 5-on-5 points per 60 minutes. Even though Frost is not a shooter, his 0.66 expected goals per 60 at 5-on-5 ranked seventh on the team and higher than some more quintessential “shooters” like Joel Farabee.
Simply put, Frost produced well with what he was given (and that might be because he got so much time in the offensive zone, but that will take too long to dive into).
Three Questions
Did they live up to expectations?
I truly don’t know if people expected Frost to take a giant leap in production. Personally, before this season started I would have been over the moon if Frost showed enough to carve out a permanent spot on this roster and not get hurt.
So by those goalposts, he exceeded expectations. Frost was able to demonstrate that he belongs here and could be trusted to bring some level of offense if he was just given the right opportunity. He played generally well, looked very good at times, and will definitely be here next season.
What can we expect from next season?
If any trades happen this summer – cough Kevin Hayes cough – then Frost should be able to average a few minutes more on the ice and could potentially move up in the lineup to be privy to some better teammates.
During Tyson Foerster’s eight-game stint with the Flyers last season he showed that he is the Real Deal and spent just over 43 minutes of 5-on-5 action next to the 23-year-old Frost. During that time, the Flyers actually outscored their opponents 4-2 and didn’t get cratered in scoring chances. So, will that be a second-line duo for next season? Are we guaranteed (if healthy) a trio down the middle of Sean Couturier, Frost, and then Noah Cates? I think we can reasonably expect some of the same level of production from Frost, while potentially just cleaning up the play-driving aspect of his game and making the team better when he is on the ice.
How do we grade their 2022-23 season?
As one of the leading scorers on this team, and someone that gave us an exciting product at times during this season, I think we can generally give a positive review of Morgan Frost. There were some errors and some mishaps, but overall you have to consider it a positive step in the right direction and him now writing his name on the lineup sheet in permanent marker with 19 goals is a bonus.
Grade: B
