Trading Cutter Gauthier is the Flyers’ first big setback in their rebuild

So now the Flyers have their J.D. Drew. They have their Eric Lindros in reverse. They have — or had, more accurately — Cutter Gauthier, who was supposed to be the gifted goal-scorer they’ve long lacked. He was their first-round draft pick in 2022. And he has been up there in Boston College for two years, living up to his billing, scoring 28 goals in just 47 games. And, just last week, across the Atlantic Ocean in Gothenburg, Sweden, helping the U.S. under-20 team win the gold medal at the World Junior Championship.

And now he will be a member of the Anaheim Ducks.

Because he wanted nothing to do with the Flyers or Philadelphia.

» READ MORE: Flyers trade No. 2 prospect Cutter Gauthier to Anaheim in shocking move

Danny Brière, the Flyers’ general manager, traded Gauthier to Anaheim on Monday in what so far has been the most surprising player-personnel move of the franchise’s rebuild. There had been plenty of mystery and scuttlebutt around Gauthier for the last several months. He didn’t say much about the Flyers publicly. Why? He didn’t attend the organization’s development camp last summer. He offered a non-answer. “Too much hockey,” he said at the time. Why? He was reluctant to participate in or be interviewed for stories that media outlets wanted to write about him. Why? Now we know why. The mystery doesn’t make the outcome any less stunning. Gauthier was presumed to be a cornerstone of the Flyers’ future, and now they have to hope that Jamie Drysdale, a 21-year-old defenseman who himself was the sixth overall pick in the 2020 draft, and a second-round pick will turn out to be the foundational pieces Gauthier was supposed to be.

“We tried to give him space,” Brière, who added that communication between the Flyers and Gauthier and his representatives had broken down weeks ago, told reporters. “We tried to get in touch with him many times. They would not communicate as far as the Gauthier side. At some point, we had to make a decision. We thought with what happened just a few days ago, this was our time to get our highest value.”

Yes, Brière ripped off the Band-Aid. Maybe Gauthier would go back to school for two more years, become a free agent, and leave the Flyers with nothing but a second-round pick for compensation. But Brière wasn’t willing to call that potential bluff, and maybe walking away from a 19-year-old wunderkind who had no desire to be here will turn out to be the best thing for the Flyers. But there’s no denying that this trade marks a setback, the first big one, in their rebuild. They were counting on Gauthier, and he’s not coming, and they’re getting Drysdale, who has played 10 games for the Ducks all season because of a lower-body injury, and a roll-of-the-dice draft pick.

Now everyone should understand why Sam Hinkie never put a definitive timeline on The Process while he was overseeing the 76ers. Now everyone should understand why the most optimistic projections for the Flyers’ rebuild, for any rebuild, are always fraught. The unknowable, and unpredictable, can always happen and often does.

“We were hoping at some point that he would change his mind,” Brière said. “He had already changed his mind. He had looked at us at the draft and told us he was built to be a Flyer.”

That draft was in July 2022. Brière said that sometime between then and last May, when Gauthier was starring for Team USA. at the 2023 International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship — he had seven goals in 10 games in that tournament — Gauthier decided that he didn’t want to play for the Flyers anymore. Brière and president Keith Jones came on board as the organization’s new leadership team that same month, May 2023, but a source with knowledge of the situation said Monday night that Gauthier had soured on the Flyers before Brière and Jones were hired.

» READ MORE: ‘A New Era of Orange’ for the Flyers: Will things be different this time?

So what changed? During a podcast interview in April 2023, just a month before, Gauthier said that he had been in touch with and “pretty close to” Kevin Hayes. A Boston College alumnus, Hayes of course had spent much of the 2022-23 season in John Tortorella’s doghouse before the Flyers traded him to the St. Louis Blues last June. He told PHLY Sports early Tuesday morning that he had ever said anything negative about the Flyers and Tortorella to Gauthier. But when asked if Hayes might have spoken to Gauthier in a manner that would have turned him off about the Flyers, the source didn’t rule it out. “Not sure,” the source said.

That’s the risk with a long rebuild. Nothing is ever sure. The Flyers found that out and decided they couldn’t wait to do something about it. Cutter Gauthier goes from savior to villain around here now, just like that. Whether he cares or not, he has done some major damage to himself in Philadelphia, with a fan base that never forgets or forgives a middle finger. It remains to be seen just how much he has done to the Flyers.