CHN Staff Report
(photo: Matt Dewkett)
It was another year where numerous high-end players flooded college hockey. And even though many of them come and go quickly these days, the sport is better for watching these players display what they do.
It also makes it difficult to pick a Player of the Year. But after splitting all the hairs, our award goes to Boston College sophomore Cutter Gauthier.
Gauthier, famously now, didn’t even really want to become a sophomore. It’s been widely reported that Gauthier wanted to sign with the Philadelphia Flyers last summer, the team that drafted him fifth overall in 2022. But the Flyers didn’t want to sign him yet. So he skipped their development camp in the summer, and forced a trade — to Anahiem — then returned to Boston College.
Now Gauthier has 37 goals — the most in the NCAA since Ryan Potulny’s 38 in 2006 — and he’s headed to the Frozen Four. His Eagles have won the Hockey East regular season, Hockey East tournament, and now will try to add a national championship to the program’s history, which would be its first since 2012.
Gauthier piled up his totals while centering the so-called “second line” at BC. The first line was overtaken with a trio of much-ballyhooed freshmen that all played together on the U.S. Junior National team — Will Smith, Ryan Leonard and Gabe Perreault.
So Gauthier played most of the season with Andre Gasseau and Oskar Jellvik. And because Gauthier is just as good a playmaker as goal scorer, he helped both of them reach career high totals in goals and points.
“It’s splitting hairs between him and Macklin Celebrini for this award,” CHN managing editor Adam Wodon said. “But people tend to overlook Gauthier’s playmaking abilities because he has such a great shot and scoring touch. His playmaking is on par with Celebrini’s, while making everyone around him better — as does Celebrini — but Gauthier has that goal-scoring knack on top of it.”
Gauthier’s 37 goals, obviously, leads the nation, as does his 13 power-play goals (tied with Leonard) and 10 game-winning goals. He also has a significant lead over the next-closest players in shots on goal with 205 — Minnesota’s Jimmy Snuggerud has 182 and BU’s Macklin…
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