Tortorella, Flyers react to Gauthier passing on Philly, addition of Drysdale originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
John Tortorella didn’t want to talk about Cutter Gauthier.
Can you blame him? After all, the top prospect decided he did not want to play for the Flyers’ organization.
Whether the club’s head coach was surprised by that decision, Tortorella was done with it Monday night. While standing behind the bench in the first period, the Flyers traded Gauthier to the Ducks. In return, they received Jamie Drysdale and a 2025 second-round draft pick from Anaheim.
“I don’t know Cutter from a hole in a wall,” Tortorella said after the Flyers’ 4-1 loss to the Penguins at the Wells Fargo Center. “I’m not too interested in talking about him. I’d rather talk about Jamie. He’s the guy that’s coming here.”
General manager Danny Briere said the Flyers never got an explanation for why Gauthier changed his mind on Philadelphia. The 19-year-old forward was selected by the Flyers fifth overall in the 2022 draft. On the July night he was drafted, he sounded excited about joining the Flyers’ organization. He even had some local ties.
But after his freshman year at Boston College and playing for the U.S. in the 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship during May, Gauthier no longer wanted to be a Flyer. Briere and the Flyers were clearly taken aback by the sudden turn of events in the summer.
“We were when it happened,” the GM said Monday night. “Now at this point, it is what it is. We started looking at, ‘How can we turn this and make the most of it?’ I have to say, I have to thank all the other teams that were involved, the teams that called us about him, to keep it kind of on the down low, to keep it secret just in case he changed his mind again.”
That never happened.
Gauthier is a big-time competitor and scorer. He’s one of college hockey’s top players as a sophomore for top-ranked Boston College.
Over the last two weeks, Gauthier shined at the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship. He led Team USA to a gold medal and finished tied for the tournament lead in scoring with 12 points (two goals, 10 assists) through seven games.
The Flyers sent Briere and president of hockey operations Keith Jones to Sweden to potentially meet with Gauthier at the tournament. It sounded like a last-ditch effort to sway Gauthier on the Flyers’ future.
“Nothing happened,” Briere said. “We tried to but they would not engage as far as a reason why. We just wanted to be able to present our case…