Three Flyers rookies, one rental car: Noah Cates, Ronnie Attard and Bobby Brink bond in a carpool

Now that they’re officially professional hockey players, Flyers rookies Ronnie Attard, Bobby Brink, and Noah Cates have placed buying a new car at the top of their offseason to-do lists.

At home, Attard drives a Ford F-150, Brink drives a Jeep Cherokee, and Cates drives a Chevy Impala. None of the three has decided exactly what car he wants to get — but they know for sure it won’t be a Nissan Sentra.

The three of them snicker when they talk about that Sentra, but as they’ve kicked off their Flyers careers, it has been that car that has carried them back and forth from practices and games.

“It gets us from point A to point B,” Attard said.

Cates, 23, was the first to join the Flyers after the University of Minnesota Duluth exited the NCAA tournament. Once he arrived in Philadelphia on March 27 to sign his entry-level contract, he was handed the keys to the rental car by the Flyers and it has been his ride ever since.

Two days later, Cates found himself with a passenger when Attard, 23, signed with the Flyers after Western Michigan’s season came to an end. The duo became a trio after Brink, whose University of Denver team knocked out Cates’ squad, won the national championship on April 9 and then signed with the Flyers the next day. As the first one there, Cates has remained the driver, and so far, Attard and Brink “have no complaints” because he has gotten them there in one piece. Attard and Brink alternate who rides shotgun, with Attard “usually on tunes.”

None of the other Flyers has shown a desire to join them (probably because the others have “pretty sweet rides,” Attard said, although Morgan Frost claims it’s because it looks crowded in the car), so the three former college rivals have become carpool buddies as they traverse the roads of Pennsylvania and New Jersey as well as the early days of their professional hockey careers.

“Everything happened really super fast for us,” Attard said. “It’s nice seeing some familiar faces. Obviously, we’ve played against each other for the last couple of years, and it’s just been great having these two with me because we’re in the same boat.”

It’s a unique situation brought on by the Flyers’ injury situation and current position in the standings. While it’s routine for the NHL to see an influx of college players after the NCAA playoffs, no team has relied on college signings more in terms of playing time and production down the stretch this season.

“There’s been a few guys here and there on different teams, but just kind of the success we’ve all had, I think we’ve done really well putting our own identities into the team,” Cates said.

Cates has scored five goals and has nine points in 15 games. Attard has rebounded from a nightmarish plus/minus of minus-9 over his first six games to go plus-8 over the next eight. Brink, 20, has four assists in nine games and is on the top power-play unit. For a struggling Flyers team, they’ve provided both excitement and hope for the future.

“They’re young and they’re excited to play,” said winger Travis Konecny, who is in his sixth NHL season. “It’s fun to feed off that.”

» READ MORE: Flyers rookies making positive strides

The older players have welcomed them and included them in activities, the rookies said. But players of a similar age and situation tend to gravitate toward each other, much like James van Riemsdyk and Claude Giroux did back in the day. Watching the three of them brings van Riemsdyk back to those days when he and Giroux were a rookie tandem.

“It kind of makes you reflect a little bit about how sometimes it can come full circle,” van Riemsdyk, 32, said. “You’re coming in like that where you’re there with your buddies on the team and spending a lot of time with them at home as well and driving together and stuff like that. And then, on the flip side of that, when you have a family and kids and stuff like that, it’s a little bit different ballgame away from the rink.”

Attard, Brink, and Cates are a unit beyond just the car rides. They go to meetings together, eat together, live in the same building, and spend their free time together. They’ve learned Cates is the neatest (which means his room is the hangout spot), Brink is the best at pitch-and-putt golf (he has the course record at the Golf Land by the training center), and Attard is the foodie — “his steak is the best in the game” — who usually picks where they eat.

It’s a change from when they were worrying about Attard’s hard shot, Brink’s skill, and, maybe most intimidating, Cates’ forecheck.

“I remember going back for a puck once, and he hit me pretty good,” Brink said.

“All night, he’s in your grill,” Attard added about Cates. “He’s always there. It’s nice having him on your side.”

With the season drawing to a close, there are only a few more rides left to make together in the Sentra before they go their separate ways. They’ll each train in their hometowns, although Cates and Brink may play together in Da Beauty League, an elite summer league in Minnesota that features NHL and NCAA players.

None of the three is guaranteed a spot on the 2022-23 opening-night NHL roster, but their time in Philadelphia has taught them what they need to work on. It also has formed a bond between them that Konecny hopes will pay off for the team in the future, and it has given them confidence that they’ll all wear the Flyers jersey together again.