Restricted free agent center Morgan Frost signs new contract with Flyers

After an up-and-down season, restricted free agent center Morgan Frost’s strong finish carried him to his next contract, a two-year, $4.2 million deal ($2.1 million average annual value) with the Flyers.

The bridge deal, which dragged out all summer, comes just two weeks before the Flyers convene for training camp. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and CapFriendly.com first reported the news on Wednesday before the team announced officially on Thursday. The 24-year-old Frost will once again be a restricted free agent at the completion of the deal.

Frost, a first-round draft pick of the Flyers in 2017, has played parts of four seasons with the team. The 2022-2023 season was the first he spent the entirety of in the NHL, as he played 81 of 82 games, and notched career-highs with 19 goals, 27 assists, and 46 points.

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While Frost kicked off the season with two goals in the season-opener against the New Jersey Devils, he didn’t exactly start off on coach John Tortorella’s good side. Tortorella scratched Frost on Nov. 2 for the first game of the season in Toronto which is less than an hour from Frost’s hometown of Aurora, Ontario.

“I think I’ve been fair giving them opportunities, especially Frosty, who’s out,” Tortorella told The Inquirer then. “I just need to see more out of him as far as playmaking because he does not do enough for us on the other side of the puck.”

At that point, Frost had not scored a goal in eight games since the season opener, and he’d only recorded one assist. He returned to the lineup three days later but continued to struggle, earning him the up and down like a “toilet seat” comparison from Tortorella.

Then, on Dec. 11, Frost broke through for a goal and three assists against the Arizona Coyotes. It was his second multi-point game of the season and his first career game of more than two points.

From there, the points started to flow for Frost, as he posted a three-game goal streak from Dec. 17-22. He still showed periods of inconsistency, but there were mostly positive signs including 13 points in 11 games from March 14-April 4. In all, Frost racked up 16 goals and 40 points over his final 54 games of the season (0.74 points per game). But Tortorella was still looking for more from his young center.

“I still think it’s the same area for me,” Tortorella said on March 24. “I don’t think he’s played poorly, but I want to see him take another step.”

However, he added that everyone told him Frost had improved drastically from the previous season, and he acknowledged that he’d improved even within the season.

“That makes me want to keep watching,” Tortorella said.

Frost showed more defensive responsibility and worked his way into a better standing with his coach by the end of the season. For the most part, Frost started playing 16-20 minutes a night. Whereas he started the season bouncing around the second, third and fourth lines, Frost primarily played in the top six at the end of the season.

”We know he has skill,” Tortorella said at the end of March. “We need to keep on seeing the skill. But for a coach to put a player on the ice that he’s still not sure of, that other stuff has to be sound. And I think he’s really improved there.”

At 24, Frost is one of the young players the Flyers want to continue to evaluate as they embark on their rebuild. General manager Danny Brière has specifically mentioned Frost by name on several occasions this offseason when talking about the young pieces the Flyers have and the improvement they showed last season.

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Frost is an important player for a Flyers organization that has lacked depth at center in recent years. They began to address that in the 2022 draft by picking Cutter Gauthier at No. 5, but Gauthier will be returning to Boston College for another year. At the NHL level, they will be hoping 24-year-old Noah Cates will continue to develop into a two-way threat and that top center Sean Couturier (back) will be ready to start the upcoming season. Frost figures to slot in as the team’s second-line center assuming Couturier is healthy.

With Frost, who was a restricted free agent for the second straight season after signing a one-year, $800,000 deal last summer, now signed, the Flyers have signed all five of the restricted free agents they extended qualifying offers to.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to remove a passage taken from a report by NBC10 without attribution.