Confirmed Trade: [ANA/PHI] Cutter Gauthier for Jamie Drysdale and 2025 2nd round pick

[BJCOLLINS]

I’m not sure why Philly fans are butt hurt here, they received the better player(right now) + a 2nd which will be an early 30’s pick. I know cutter has potential but his IQ is questionable(see comments, actions especially at WJC/24) he’s reading his own press clippings………Dysdale is a low maintenance kid with outstanding potential as well!

good trade for both teams Philly wins this now……potentially by a lot.
cheers

 

[FiveTacos]

I agree with you here. The only thing that I think should be added, is it's also extremely unprofessional on the agent's (and Cutter's) behalf to leave the organization without meeting or a call to explain his reasoning.

Well we don't really know that. We have one side of the story, and of course the Flyers are going to spin it to their advantage. They may in fact know exactly what caused this to happen but not want it to come out. "He just changed his mind with no explanation," is frankly weird.

There are only a handful of people likely to know the whole unvarnished truth, yet each potentially has good reason not to reveal it.

 

[bleedgreen]

If Drysdale ends up as anything other than a 1D, Flyers lose this trade. If he's a 3/4 it's disastrous.

I hope I'm wrong but I'm confident Cutter is a good bet to be a star level player

Come on, they did very well for the situation getting the return they did. It’s not on Drysdale to be a number one.

Gauthier I’m going to say never really wanted to play for Philly, I don’t buy the perceived slight for not helping his career start earlier as the reason he suddenly didn’t want to play there anymore.

The Canes got two seconds for “losing” Adam Fox. You can’t lose something you never really had, they got a good return. You move on. Drysdale will be at least a top four guy with heavy pp use, maybe a top pair. They get him already a few years into his development right now. They’re a better team than they were a few days ago and they still get a second rounder.

 

[CorgisPer60]

He has a sick release/shot, when he gets it on net. But it's usually from above the dots, too.


He makes up things about death threats and still won't give a reason lol.

The reason is clearly a terrible look on him or else he would've said it instead of going out looking for empathy and phrasing himself as a victim.

Guess Hayes is making stuff up too. Guess everyone that gets death threats are making them up. I can't imagine a situation where somebody is mentally unhinged enough that they want to wish death on people. Obviously this means the alleged victims of death threats are just making them up.

*wanking motion*

 

[Gabe Kupari]

Do you not have any self-awareness at all?
You’ve been posting about this 24/7, liking every post dissing Gauthier, taking shots at the other organization etc.

If police were looking in to those death threats, you’d be a prime suspect

I’d suspect if police were looking into online death threats we could all go rob every bank in every city in North America while they do that because it’s gonna take a while. Cuz death threats on an app you can actually delete happens daily 100000000 times

 

[OKR]

I’d suspect if police were looking into online death threats we could all go rob every bank in every city in North America while they do that because it’s gonna take a while. Cuz death threats on an app you can actually delete happens daily 100000000 times

Well, no shit? Hence why i said ”IF police were looking”…

 

[Rschmitz]

Philadelphia did excellent getting what they got for him. well done

 

[EdmFlyersfan]

Can the Flyers management and Philadelphia media give 19 year old Cutter Gauthier a break for Cutter being upset about not getting to burn an ELC year? It’s not like he’s a 23 year old who pushed a disabled person’s wheelchair down a flight of stairs. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw D Cell batteries.

He doesn't deserve a break, his response reminds me of the Blackhawks organization response to their scandals...the guy is a loser.

 

[captainpaxil]

Foad is not a death threat

 

[BringBackTheIceman]

He doesn't deserve a break, his response reminds me of the Blackhawks organization response to their scandals...the guy is a loser.

I don't think requesting a trade is quite on the level of sexual abuse bud

 

[EdmFlyersfan]

I don't think requesting a trade is quite on the level of sexual abuse bud

Didn't say it was, but his response is typical of what a guilty party does to try and cover themselves.

 

[santapore]

seriously if this is a contract problem from last season i laugh. what an stupid person. entitled and so on. but one person said about potential what stuck with me...next bobby ryan for anaheim. that could be close one. i loving getting drysdale and i can now forget pretty boy with bad attitude.(that attitude can be fixed with getting more years in life.grow up child)

 

[irishsetter13]

“It wasn’t one specific reason why I asked for a trade,” said Gauthier. “It was multiple, re-occurring issues that I’d seen over the past year and a half, two years of being under the Flyers organization. It kind of hit me all at once, thinking ‘I can’t move forward with this’...

Honestly, make me wonder if maybe the organization and the fans may be a reason for this. He has said he has gotten death threats, Kevin Hayes got death threats for no reason, the entire Flyers organization including alumni have just bashed him relentlessly. The Chairman and CEO of the Flyers effectively threatened him that Flyers fans may throw batteries at him when he comes back (refrencing J.D. Drew incident way back in the day).

Briere said they were trying to protect the kid, but the second they traded him they effectively put a hit on him with every Flyers fan. It sounds like they were pressuring him like crazy. Sending Alumni to go talk to him at BC Games. Flying to Sweden to try to talk to him in the middle of a massive World Junior Tournament. Maybe he wanted to focus on Hockey. Maybe he wanted communications to go through his agent. (I believe Elliotte Friedman says typically Team Canada won't let their players speak to their NHL teams during World Juniors to avoid distractions).

The entire organization and the fan base has been insane. I can understand being slighted and not liking him, but almost everything that has been done has been excessive and over the line in my opinion. Boo him relentlessly. But dont bring other players into it, dont randomly speculate, dont make death threats. Maybe he was familiar with how shitty the fan base actted at times and didnt want to be a part of that.

Cutter could have done what a number of players had done before. Play 4 years in college and become a free agent. All the Flyers wouldve gotten then was a early 2nd round compensatory pick. Cutter couldve gone to the media and said he didnt want to play with the Flyers and effectively tank his value. Instead, he told the Flyers he didnt want to play with him and was quiet. He didnt significantly negatively impact his return. In fact, getting a former 6th overall pick that is only 2 years older and a 2nd rounder is pretty decent return. Could've been better, but could've been a lot worse.

It sucks. Sometimes players dont want to play for your franchise. Its happened to a number of franchises before. Hell Michkov apparently told the Coyotes and Canadiens he wasnt going to play for them which enabled the Flyers to draft him. Lindros didnt want to play for the Nordiques.

This has happened a million times. It sucks. Boo all you want. But dont threaten a kid or anyone else.

 

[Alienblood]

If he told Danny “this is important to me, get it done or I’m out” - do you really think Danny Briere would have said, “no way”?

maybe cause he got a better player in Drysdale now so it all worked out in the end.

Total win for the Flyers here

 

[BJCOLLINS]

To bad we‘lI never see it but I would pay “good money” to watch Cutter Gauthier play ”The Big I am” on John Tortorella’s bench, lol.

 

[Clark Kellogg]

He doesn't deserve a break, his response reminds me of the Blackhawks organization response to their scandals...the guy is a loser.

He is an amateur hockey player that has not signed a professional contract.
According to reports he wanted to sign with the Flyers this season and burn an ELC year.
Flyers management couldn’t/wouldn’t accommodate due to overage bonuses carryover from last season.
Guessing Gauthier and his agent felt they could have made it work.
Summary:
Cutter Gauthier wanted to be a Flyer.
Flyer Organization said not this season.
Flyer management doing damage control and getting out in front of the story including members of their staff according to Sanfillippo pointing the finger at a former Flyer player.
Believe what you want but there are usually two sides to every story and the truth lies somewhere in-between.

 

[EdmFlyersfan]

He is an amateur hockey player that has not signed a professional contract.
According to reports he wanted to sign with the Flyers this season and burn an ELC year.
Flyers management couldn’t/wouldn’t accommodate due to overage bonuses carryover from last season.
Guessing Gauthier and his agent felt they could have made it work.
Summary:
Cutter Gauthier wanted to be a Flyer.
Flyer Organization said not this season.
Flyer management doing damage control and getting out in front of the story including members of their staff according to Sanfillippo pointing the finger at a former Flyer player.
Believe what you want but there are usually two sides to every story and the truth lies somewhere in-between.

If it's that simple, why not come out and say it instead of ghosting the team...he knows he's a jerk and now is hiding behind is parents and agent because of the backlash he never expected.

 

[FiveTacos]

seriously if this is a contract problem from last season i laugh. what an stupid person. entitled and so on.

Caring about a loss of millions in earning potential makes you entitled? It may not be relatable, but it's a heck of a lot more relatable than a franchise worth a billion+ trying to save on $90k in cap overages and trying to squeeze an extra year out of an ELC contract for a guy presumed to be a key building block.

Assuming that's what it is. At this point we really don't know, even that is just a guess. All I know is "he just changed his mind because he hates Torts/loves the Pens/got bad advice from Hayes/etc." is not very believable.

It's not as if a trade now makes him more money, and there was never any guarantee that his next team was going to acquire him and sign him in time to make up for this year's lost wages too. So whatever it is was enough to make him potentially sacrifice 900k of salary this year. Most people don't just walk away from almost a million bucks without a hell of a good reason beyond being "entitled."

Honestly, the more I think about it nothing we've actually heard so far from "sources" passes the smell test.

 

[Rich Nixon]

“It wasn’t one specific reason why I asked for a trade,” said Gauthier. “It was multiple, re-occurring issues that I’d seen over the past year and a half, two years of being under the Flyers organization. It kind of hit me all at once, thinking ‘I can’t move forward with this’...

Honestly, make me wonder if maybe the organization and the fans may be a reason for this. He has said he has gotten death threats, Kevin Hayes got death threats for no reason, the entire Flyers organization including alumni have just bashed him relentlessly. The Chairman and CEO of the Flyers effectively threatened him that Flyers fans may throw batteries at him when he comes back (refrencing J.D. Drew incident way back in the day).

Briere said they were trying to protect the kid, but the second they traded him they effectively put a hit on him with every Flyers fan. It sounds like they were pressuring him like crazy. Sending Alumni to go talk to him at BC Games. Flying to Sweden to try to talk to him in the middle of a massive World Junior Tournament. Maybe he wanted to focus on Hockey. Maybe he wanted communications to go through his agent. (I believe Elliotte Friedman says typically Team Canada won't let their players speak to their NHL teams during World Juniors to avoid distractions).

The entire organization and the fan base has been insane. I can understand being slighted and not liking him, but almost everything that has been done has been excessive and over the line in my opinion. Boo him relentlessly. But dont bring other players into it, dont randomly speculate, dont make death threats. Maybe he was familiar with how shitty the fan base actted at times and didnt want to be a part of that.

Cutter could have done what a number of players had done before. Play 4 years in college and become a free agent. All the Flyers wouldve gotten then was a early 2nd round compensatory pick. Cutter couldve gone to the media and said he didnt want to play with the Flyers and effectively tank his value. Instead, he told the Flyers he didnt want to play with him and was quiet. He didnt significantly negatively impact his return. In fact, getting a former 6th overall pick that is only 2 years older and a 2nd rounder is pretty decent return. Could've been better, but could've been a lot worse.

It sucks. Sometimes players dont want to play for your franchise. Its happened to a number of franchises before. Hell Michkov apparently told the Coyotes and Canadiens he wasnt going to play for them which enabled the Flyers to draft him. Lindros didnt want to play for the Nordiques.

This has happened a million times. It sucks. Boo all you want. But dont threaten a kid or anyone else.

No, this is exactly it. The quotes in that Sporting Tribune article kinda confirm what I think anyone who follows the Flyers with a critical eye has seen.

The Flyers have been mismanaged for a while. That's not really a debate. They hired two consecutive bad GMs, ran through coaches, put a shitty product on the ice, and emptied out one of the most consistently-full arenas in the league. You can look at it any way you want, but they have gone from one of the premier names in the sport to just another mediocre team and brand. That's the result of bad decisions made by the people who run both the hockey operations and the business itself.

And to fix this mess, you'd think that a team would look to hire externally. But instead they hired right from their existing corporate structure: a former player turned business protege and their own color commentator. Doesn't smack of "innovative, forward-thinking organization" really.

Cutter likely saw some of that in action—Fletcher's laughable final Trade Deadline and firing happened the week before BC's season ended, at the time he would've been discussing signing a pro deal. Gauthier would have talked to two very different GMs in the course of a couple weeks.

I think there are enough tidbits out there to safely assume something wasn't aligning: Perhaps he gad an agreement from Fletcher to sign which became irrelevant when Briere was suddenly the GM. Maybe the rookie GM did make things tricky on himself trying to play moneyball over cap overages. As Cutter himself said, it wasn't just one thing, so I'm guessing he perceived the dysfunction in all that and began wondering about whether he wanted to begin his career working for management he didn't have faith in.

The coordinated and concerted messaging from the Flyers is obnoxious and unprofessional. It's also narrative control. Jones was hired as team President to sell "The New Era of Orange" to a very angry and alienated fanbase. It's working: They're in playoff position and people are returning to the arena.

Even if the dysfunction was left over from the previous administration and the relationship with Gauthier is just extremely unfortunate fallout from problems they have since resolved, they are not ever going to acknowledge that—and no-commenting would fuel speculation that they're still quite dysfunctional (which it's safe to assume they are, at least to an extent).

Instead, they chose to go on the offensive instantly to try to generate a galvanizing moment for their fanbase. Philly sports fans respond well to people saying they hate them, so the Flyers decided to portray Gauthier's decision as some slight to the city/franchise/fanbase by repeatedly shouting "He didn't want to be A FLYER!"

And it's working, at least locally. They were able to turn a kid saying "I don't have confidence in this franchise" into a rallying cry for the toxic, drooling masses—the ones who produce profits for them—to the point that some are sending death threats. I mean, it is a business, and they did play this pretty well. But how that behavior will reflect within the business of hockey? If other players or agents will have second thoughts about dealing with them, they'll have earned it.

 

[SeanAveryTheGreatOne]

I'm glad this time the totally unsubstantiated rumor some journalist schmuck made up didn't involve romantic affairs.

 

[FiveTacos]

If it's that simple, why not come out and say it instead of ghosting the team...

You're assuming the team wasn't already informed as to the reasons. Thus far the org is the only one putting out any spin. They may know perfectly well what happened and just don't want to talk about it.

And even if true and it's all about the ELC, it's also not that simple to come out with it. For one, the financial loss can't be recovered and doesn't gain him anything to cry about it now except to force the Flyers to more aggressively smear him. Second, the only tighter circle than players in the sport is that of management/ownership, you don't rock that boat more than you need to. And third, if he trashes the Flyers, his agent still has other clients and potential dealings with the team that could become difficult.

 

[Clark Kellogg]

If it's that simple, why not come out and say it instead of ghosting the team...he knows he's a jerk and now is hiding behind is parents and agent because of the backlash he never expected.

All 19 year olds are jerks.
Speaking from experienc here. I was one of them.

 

[thedjpd]

He is an amateur hockey player that has not signed a professional contract.
According to reports he wanted to sign with the Flyers this season and burn an ELC year.
Flyers management couldn’t/wouldn’t accommodate due to overage bonuses carryover from last season.
Guessing Gauthier and his agent felt they could have made it work.
Summary:
Cutter Gauthier wanted to be a Flyer.
Flyer Organization said not this season.
Flyer management doing damage control and getting out in front of the story including members of their staff according to Sanfillippo pointing the finger at a former Flyer player.
Believe what you want but there are usually two sides to every story and the truth lies somewhere in-between.

This isn't accurate. Gauthier indicated he wanted to play in BC this season with the addition of the BC line to try and win a championship down there.

The contact after the Worlds in May last year over zoom was the Flyers thinking he changed his mind and wanted to go pro (the Flyers were ready to do this) - but instead it was CG saying he did not want to play for the Flyers. The argument about this year hold no water. If there was a contract argument, I could certainly see it more last year where the Flyers weren't willing to burn an ELC year in his draft + 1 year (10 games) where it might have soured. THAT makes more sense than this year.

I don't know if that's where Briere got the "list" of teams he'd play for, or if he even got a reason - that may be just media-speak.

However, those talking about "Gauthier doesn't owe them an explanation" may be valid in an instance where there is no investment made into something; i.e., no asset was spent - say, like when he's a UFA and he says "I have 0 interest in playing for the Flyers" - that's totally fine.

But professional courtesy here is that the team invested a high draft pick, in a player who stated he was willing to play and "excited" to be a Flyer - to which it cost the Flyers a high value asset that they have invested into him. To later then state "I changed my mind, and have no interest in playing for your organization" is breaking a verbal agreement, and not providing an explanation or rationale - is a violation and from a professional conduct point of view, you do owe an explanation of why you are breaking that.

Now, did he provide one or not and the Flyers are not getting the hint and still pushing? Maybe. But the comments from the agent in response saying "Drafted players are not entitled to play for the organization that drafted them" seems to imply a lack of accountability in changing his mind (which is ok to do, but when you are an investment you should provide a reason). That is actually the purpose of the draft's existence - your rights are owned by the team that drafted you - and you are beholden to play for them.

If there's an issue with that, then these agents need to fight for it in the next CBA about what the draft rights actually are.

So all in all, it just seems like CG changed is mind and is trying not to get blamed for it. It doesn't really work that way. Ghosting isn't really the right move regardless of saying yes or no - organizations, corporations and people are always persistent to see if they can rectify or fix a situation - that is a mature attitude. CG did not even give them the light of day in order to do that. It's perfectly ok for him to meet with whoever went out of their way to try one last time for him to say "thank you for coming, but I hold my position I stated previously, please trade me" - and again, I don't blame him for this as he's a kid - but it sure seems like he's gotten some poor guidance.

Good luck to him.

 

[oilers4life5]

Oilers fan? Since our beginning we have 32 more playoff wins then the Oilers and 1 more cup and 2 more finals appearances. Staple of success in the lottery is all you have going. Want to do regular season? We’ve been more successful there as well and never picked 1st let alone doing it 4 times LOL

Flyers fan? Well in the past 20 years we have more playoff wins then you so whichever angle you are coming from you have been less successful. For AT LEAST 2 decades.

Good effort though at throwing comments at the wall and seeing if they get you internet likes.

Who gifted you the Stanley cup? That’s right the Oilers with Pronger.

 

[Petes2424]

He is an amateur hockey player that has not signed a professional contract.
According to reports he wanted to sign with the Flyers this season and burn an ELC year.
Flyers management couldn’t/wouldn’t accommodate due to overage bonuses carryover from last season.
Guessing Gauthier and his agent felt they could have made it work.
Summary:
Cutter Gauthier wanted to be a Flyer.
Flyer Organization said not this season.
Flyer management doing damage control and getting out in front of the story including members of their staff according to Sanfillippo pointing the finger at a former Flyer player.
Believe what you want but there are usually two sides to every story and the truth lies somewhere in-between.

This is where the truth probably lies. At least somewhere around this.. Speculation being, the Flyers weren’t clear enough that their intentions were to sign him during the summer and bring him to camp, just not at the end of a season, burning his ELC.

Somewhere in those conversations, Cutter took offense. Whether that’s on he and his agent, or the Flyers, we will likely never know.

One thing nobody mentions regarding this speculation? If that was the Flyers intention, then why wasn’t he still signed over the summer?? Or was the relationship already severed at that point, and Cutter made that decision NOT to sign, asking for a trade?

There’s always two sides, and unfortunately after all the denials regarding the Hayes part of this story, there’s still people believing that was the reason. So people will believe whatever they choose to fit their opinions. We will likely never know the true story. Personally if it was a misunderstanding, you would’ve thought that would've been cleared up pretty quickly. Who knows though. Kids blow everything out of proportion these days.