JojoTheWhale
Lemme unload.
- May 22, 2008
- 34,612
- 108,087
He could have, but that makes everything more confusing when you look at what the possible reasons might have been, based on reporting by people like Friedman (who don't, y'know, work for the Flyers).
Their line has been "HE DIDN'T WANT TO BE A FLYER HE LIED TO US!" and they've been placing that timeline way early in his freshman year at BC, which makes little sense, especially given that Gauthier attended development camp that summer and himself said that it was "multiple things" that hit him over the "year and a half" since he'd been drafted.
Now, there is a possibility that he'd inquired about signing immediately after his freshman year before that year even started, and they could've shut that down right away, and problems could have begun there. But at that point, Fletcher is still GM. And I think if issues started under the Fletcher regime, they'd have been far more likely to just say that outright.
The most credible insider information, to me, is what Friedman reported:
Given that Chuck Fletcher was fired on 3/10/23, that would mean this conversation happened in the first week—first couple days, even—of Briere's GM tenure.
- They spoke after Gauthier's college season ended on 3/11/23.
- Gauthier wanted to join the team at that point.
- The Flyers didn't want to burn a year of his ELC and/or face a cap overage
- The Flyers said they could maybe give him an AHL PTO for the remainder of the season, which obviously didn't happen
- Gauthier informed them in May '23 that he would not sign with them
So if you had to ask me to guess a narrative, it would be that newbie GM didn't know how to read the situation, was trying to play a little moneypuck with the cap, and didn't realize that the haughty douchebag 5th overall pick was going to be offended by an AHL PTO offer. And was stunned to find out he was. And that the team's full-court press in the media after trading him was distraction for the fact that overall franchise dysfunction/front office turnover resulted in an unprepared new GM walking into an important conversation that went totally sideways and cost them a top prospect.
As an aside, there were BC media people who directly stated Gauthier was interested in signing after the season in '23. They obviously have no interest here either. Hell, they'd want to avoid talking about him being ready to leave.