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Even if Cutter Gauthier Goes on to Score 100 Goals, We’re Not Doing Revisionist Trade History
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This is an abomination. Quitter Gauthier and Cindy Crosby tied for the NHL league-lead with 11 goals apiece:
The Penguins are off to a good start, but they’re older than dirt. They’ll fall back to Earth at some point here and miss the playoffs for the fourth year in a row. Believe it or not, they haven’t won a playoff series since Donald Trump’s first term, so no one is under some illusion that they’re a contender with a 38-year-old Crosby, 39-year-old Malkin, and then Kris Letang, Erik Karlsson, and Bryan Rust all 33+. The Penguins are who we thought they were.
Anaheim is a surprise. They’re on a five-game winning streak in which they’ve clubbed Dallas, New Jersey, Detroit, and Florida twice. They’ve scored 7 goals four times this year and actually lead the league with 4.14 goals per game. 20-year-old Leo Carlsson has 20 points in 13 games and they’re really playing well in front of all five fans that come out to the games.
Of course, there’s a slight bit of grumbling on the timeline. “Did the Flyers make a mistake in trading Cutter Gauthier?” 610-632-0975. The argument is honestly an N/A type of thing, not applicable because how do you argue that they made the wrong decision in trading a guy who didn’t want to be here? The complaint that management needed to “figure it out” and make it work is nebulous at best, because nobody knows if that was even possible. The Flyers were in a transitional period with a lame duck coach who didn’t fit the rebuild and Gauthier was selected in Chuck Fletcher’s last draft before the GM was fired. Danny Briere was a special assistant to the GM at the time of the draft, and didn’t officially become GM until 2023, and said publicly many times that Gauthier wouldn’t communicate with the organ-I-zation.
Looking at the trade through a wider lens, the Flyers returned Jamie Drysdale and a 2nd round draft pick that became Jack Murtagh. The trade can’t be fully evaluated for a few years yet, but Drysdale, still only 23 years old, has looked much better this season. He’s healthy and flying around and seems settled, which leads me into this point from Kevin Kurz:
This feels like one of those trades that worked out for both teams. Gauthier didn’t want to be here. Drysdale needed a change of scenery and is now reunited with Zegras in Philadelphia. Both teams are now having respectable seasons after years of dreck and look to be headed in the right direction.
There’s probably some blanket disappointment among Flyers fans that it didn’t work out with a kid who looks to be a special player, but that’s different from making the argument that the Flyers did the wrong thing. It is what it is, a hockey Eli Manning if you will. It’s not the first time hands have been forced, nor will it be the last, and for that reason it feels like revisionist Cutter Gauthier history is a waste of time.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com