Cutter Gauthier breaks his silence on trade from Flyers

The Cutter Gauthier-Jamie Drysdale trade has dominated the hockey universe for the past few days.

Two top prospects being traded for each other seemingly out of the blue is always major news. But the shocking revelation that Gauthier had cut ties with the Flyers for months and did not want to play for them has poured gallons of gasoline on the media firestorm.

But until late Wednesday night, one question remained: Why did Gauthier not want to play for the Flyers?

» READ MORE: Cutter Gauthier trade: Why the Flyers did it, who they got back, and what it means

In actuality, we still don’t really know. But after two days of speculation ranging from informed to wild, we finally heard from the key actor in this saga, Gauthier himself. Appearing on the Anaheim Ducks’ Light the Lamp podcast, Gauthier discussed the trade and his reasons for wanting out of Philadelphia.

“It’s kind of tough to talk about. I’d like to announce that, like, it’s a personal matter between myself and my family and my agent Kurt [Overhardt],” Gauthier said. “I did see one thing going around the internet that I would like to specifically address about the rumors about Kevin Hayes. I would like to officially say that he had zero, zero conflict with anything that had to do with the trade, and seeing all that stuff is pretty ruthless from what people are saying. But Kevin Hayes had nothing to do with the situation at hand, and I can’t really talk too much about it. Going to keep it to myself and my family and my agent.”

The statement, which did not reveal much, echoed what Gauthier’s advisers told The Inquirer on Wednesday.

“We think that this is just a private matter and needs to stay private,” said Gauthier’s advisers, who requested anonymity in return for speaking to The Inquirer. “We understand why people are upset, and people are allowed to be upset and make their own judgment.

“But, on the other hand, along the same lines, when a college player is drafted by an NHL team, there’s no entitlement by that team, nor is there a requirement by the player to have to sign there. Like, as you know, as recently as Adam Fox with Calgary and Carolina.”

Gauthier shed more light on his situation in a story with The Sporting Tribune, saying that “there might be one day where I kind of get into the details of what happened. Right now, I kind of want to keep it to a private matter.”

“It wasn’t one specific reason why I asked for a trade,” Gauthier told local media via Zoom. “It was multiple, [recurring] issues that I’d seen over the past year and a half, two years of being under the Flyers organization. It kind of hit me all at once, thinking, ‘I can’t move forward with this, and I really need to step up for myself and see what’s best for my future,’ and that’s what I did.”

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

He also tried to end the speculation that playing for John Tortorella factored into his decision.

“All those rumors saying I was scared of Torts, that’s not the case at all,” Gauthier said. “I’ve had many hard-o coaches throughout my whole life, and I think that any coach I play for would love to have me on their team. I want to do whatever it takes to win, and if they’re a hard, yelling, screaming kind of coach, I’ll roll with the punches. I’m never going to disrespect or talk back to a coach. I’m going to give it my all every single shift, and that was definitely not the reason why I didn’t want to play in Philly. I actually met Torts during dev camp two years back. I was super excited and thrilled to meet him, and obviously being a big name in hockey and the coaching staff industry, definitely was not against playing for him whatsoever.”

It looks as if we, as well as the Flyers (who still say they don’t know the specific reason for Gauthier’s change of heart) will have to wait a little longer to find out exactly what prompted Gauthier to want out of Philadelphia and force the Flyers to trade him.