January 12, 2024
Eric Bolte/USA TODAY Sports
It'll be another jersey Cutter Gauthier puts on when he makes the jump to the NHL.
January is progressing and the Flyers, though uneven of late, are continuing to hang around in the Metro Division and the Eastern Conference's developing playoff picture.
After grinding out yet another shootout win, 3-2, against Montreal at home on Wednesday night, the Flyers now stand at 21-14-6 on the season for a 48 points that is good for third in the Metro as of Thursday.
There's still a lot of season left – "You don't know what your team is until the end of January," head coach John Tortorella said last month when his Flyers were on a tear heading into the holidays – but they are at the halfway mark now, and they are hanging in there, which has brought on the development of a handful of notable storylines to touch on.
Of course, the big one dropped out of nowhere Monday night while the Flyers were playing Pittsburgh: Former top prospect Cutter Gauthier wasn't in the plans anymore. As we came to find out, he informed the organization that he no longer wished to play for them at some point last spring and then cut off all contact entirely, which led general manager Danny Brière to eventually land on a trade with the Anaheim Ducks for smooth-skating defenseman Jamie Drysdale and a 2025 second-round draft pick.
It was a shocker, and a moment that threw the Flyers' rebuild its first nasty curveball, without any real reason as well since Brière explained to the media that Gauthier never even gave the organization one.
But that was it regardless. Gauthier, the fifth overall pick in the draft just over a year and a half ago, was gone. Philadelphia sports had its new J.D. Drew-level villain (maybe even worse since Gauthier was originally game to be a Flyer) because what did he mean he didn't want to play here anymore? While Drysdale arrived less than 24 hours later, making his debut Wednesday night under bizarrely unique, and rushed, circumstances.
But he still played well, and registered his first point in orange and black right away, all in front of a Wells Fargo Center crowd that was ready to fully embrace him with every touch of the puck. Because he's a good player himself, and one that's hopefully only going to get better in the years to come, but more importantly, because of all that just happened so suddenly, he's Philadelphia's guy now too.
"You hear Philly's a great sports city, hockey city, but you don't really know until you actually experience it," Drysdale said postgame. "So definitely some nerves, excitement, but just happy we came out with the win. It was a pretty good debut."
But a beat in a story that won't be over for quite some time...
• Now that Gauthier is a Duck, his long vow of silence regarding Philadelphia has ended. The 19-year old got on introductory calls with the Anaheim media on Wednesday, and inevitably, he faced questions about what exactly went wrong with the Flyers.
Unfortunately, he didn't provide any clarity.
“That’s the question (that) kind of everyone’s wondering, and the biggest thing I can say right now is I have to keep it to myself, my family and my agent,” Gauthier said (via The Athletic's Eric Stephens). “It’s been a long process in the past handful of months of dealing with this. I don’t think it’s the right time to kind of discuss it. There might be one day where I kind of get into details on what happened. Right now, I want to keep it to a private matter.”
But the problem, as Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman noted in his piecing together of the Gauthier saga, is that so long as Gauthier's camp remains quiet – since, again, the Flyers don't even know what went wrong – people are going to guess. And if you were even remotely aware of what was flowing on social media in the immediate aftermath of the trade, then you already know about the rumors, theories, and vitriol that were being thrown around.
What led to the #Flyers trading away their top prospect Cutter Gauthier? @FriedgeHNIC weighs in with @JeffMarek.
— Sportsnet 590 The FAN (@FAN590) January 9, 2024
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📺 https://t.co/SqK7M993Jz & @Sportsnet 360
📻 https://t.co/tEtiRUWyip pic.twitter.com/vDFBxg8Xcg
That lack of closure on what the actual cause of the rift was between Gauthier and the Flyers, however, was met with a lot of anger and bitterness from the outside, and unfortunately, with no justification behind it and no place to direct it, it spread everywhere else.
That's the ugly side of the trade – that we saw at least – but now that it's all said and done, the heat should settle down soon enough.
Gauthier is a Duck. Drysdale is a Flyer. And although we still don't have the "why" and probably won't for a long time, all parties seem content to just move on.
• Morgan Frost's game-tying power-play goal in the second period Wednesday night gave Drysdale his first assist and point as a Flyer, but the 24-year old center just as much needed that moment too.
Frost never seemed to have any problem pushing the puck up ice, it's just finishing within the offensive zone this season that's been the problem. He had six goals entering Wednesday night against Montreal, but mostly through picking up trash in front or tipping a redirect – which shouldn't be discredited by any means.
But goal No. 7? That was a goal scorer's goal. A step in, a quick move, and a clean shot threaded through everyone.
JAMIE DRYSDALE REGISTERS HIS 1ST POINT AS A FLYER ON THIS SWEET PPG BY MORGAN FROST ‼
— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) January 11, 2024
Fly Guys tie this game up at ✌ pic.twitter.com/vSMmsmyVMQ
• The Flyers' bottom of the league power play looked a lot better with Drysdale walking the line up by the point Wednesday night, but it actually started trending upward in the couple of games prior with Egor Zamula playing quarterback up high on the man advantage.
The 23-year old defenseman had assists on each of the Flyers' power play goals against Calgary on Saturday and then Pittsburgh on Monday night, and did so moving the puck quickly and with purpose.
"Zamula's made a big difference," Tortorella said after Saturday's 3-2 win over the Flames. "It's a quarterback. I think he has that type of mentality. I think he has that type of poise. I think he's made a huge difference to give us a chance just to settle it down sometimes...
"I think Z has done a terrific job at settling things down, and other guys have chipped in from there."
It isn't just the prowess he's brought to the power play though, Zamula has looked a lot more confident also at even strength and while working back in the Flyers' own end. Notably going back to the Calgary game, Zamula kept an active stick that broke up at least a couple of zone entries for the Flames to get things shifted back the other way, using better positioning and his 6'3" fame to stay on the body and sweep the puck away.
Not a finished product yet, but much further along than he was from a year ago.
• Owen Tippett scored late in the first period against Montreal Wednesday night for his second goal in as many games, but it felt like he easily could've had four or five. With that quick shot and powerful stride, Tippett was constantly barreling into the Canadiens zone and creating chance after chance, but be it running out of room to gain an angle, a great save by goaltender Cayden Primeau, or a great shot that went rocketing off the cross bar, Tippett couldn't put anything else home.
I mean, hell, he was trying to break the sound barrier trying to win the game in the dying seconds of overtime.
We have a new fastest skating speed this season, with @NHLFlyers forward Owen Tippett clocking in at 24.21 mph in the dying seconds of overtime last night. 🌪️
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) January 11, 2024
More #NHLStats via NHL EDGE: https://t.co/7oEEQBRUTd pic.twitter.com/zPtZJy0Iej
• Carter Hart was great against the Flames on Saturday – Monday night against the Penguins was what it was – while Samuel Ersson stood tall under pressure and in the shootout Wednesday night against the Canadiens.
Ersson's fundamentals and positioning in particular really stood out against the Habs as he completely took away any and all angles with excellent anticipation for what shooters were betting on. Strong goaltending is always a credit to the defense in front and vice versa – but there was a reason why the Habs' only two goals were off of weird, flukey bounces and nothing else. They had not other way of figuring out Ersson.
The Flyers take the two points as Samuel Ersson shuts the door in the shootout 🚪 pic.twitter.com/pAq6XdLgYH
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 11, 2024
The Flyers have two good goaltenders going right now, and the thought of a controversy should be the last thing on anyone's mind about that. If anything, Philly has the solution to this season's biggest problem.
Look around the league and all teams either in contention or hanging in there have a starter/backup combo that's giving them a consistent chance from night to night, regardless of who's in. Obviously, the Bruins have Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark, Seattle's gone on a recent tear with Joey Daccord able to step in for Philipp Grubauer, and even the Rangers have their perennial Vezina candidate Igor Shesterkin backed up by a Jonathan Quick who is still going.
So if there's a universal theme across the NHL this season, it's the rule of twos for goaltenders. And while the Flyers still very much have other parts of their team to figure out, they at least have that aspect down pat.
• I just want to reiterate again that Sean Couturier is very important to this team and that his return has been a big reason why they've played beyond expectations so far:
Man is defensively incredible. pic.twitter.com/GdaKcRWZMV
— Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) January 7, 2024
Saturday's game against Calgary fell on Ed Snider's birthday, and was thus designated as the Flyers' "Ed Snider Legacy Game" where the organization went above and beyond to honor its late founder – from having various family members, franchise alumni, and Snider Hockey students on hand, along with a sizable $300,000 donation to Snider Hockey, various video tributes, and a one-day return of the "Flyer Forever" patches on the shoulder of the players that were worn for all of the 2016-17 season following his passing in April 2016.
It felt special, and more than anything, it was a sign of how far the Flyers have come in finding themselves again whereas two years ago, when the team was a rudderless, apathetic mess, they let the day pass entirely without mention, and to the ire of many fans, alumni, and family.
Today we honor the legacy and standard set by our founder. #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/JtFvPC2hKj
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) January 6, 2024
Unexpectedly, all of that progress and change carried over a couple of days later into the totally unified way the organization – quite literally from the top on down – handled the Cutter Gauthier situation.
Everyone, from Danny Brière to Keith Jones, John Tortorella, Travis Sanheim, and then Dan Hilferty at the top of it all were on the same page and didn't blink twice about it: Cutter Gauthier didn't want to be a Flyer. "So he's not going to be a Flyer." They'll go find someone who does.
Was the fact that they did have to trade him a massive wrench in the plan? Yeah, but they also went and got a potential top-pairing defenseman out of it and handled the whole response with a sense of transparency and grace that was as impressive as it was refreshing.
Look, go back even just a year ago and Chuck Fletcher probably takes action but fumbles it – example.
Go back a few years further and Ron Hextall probably lets the whole problem sit there and burn while just hoping for the best to somehow happen.
But the front office duo of Brière and Jones? They made a clear and concerted effort to still recover from this whole breakdown – doing so with clear respect around the league as other execs knew about Gauthier's rift but kept quiet – and walked away with a young, NHL-ready skater who can just as much help the team today as he hopefully will tomorrow.
They're not going to be perfect – and let's face it, no one was walking away perfect from that – but they're trying, Brière's definitely adapting as a GM, and they're being forward about it.
They get it. They get what the Philadelphia Flyers are supposed to be, what they need to be in today's NHL, today's city.
And these past few days, as unique and as crazy as they've been, they're a show that they are building toward it – slowly but surely.
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