Running NHL 2023-24 regular season thread

Writing was on the wall when Gauthier didn’t come to development camp last summer. Knew then something wasn’t right. Flyers need more skill and size up front, but they also need a puck mover on the back end who can help their god awful power play so Briere did pretty well all things considered.

 

Is there any reason to think this is about anything other than avoiding Tortorella? That may well be a sufficient reason, although I think it's fair to wonder if a 19-year-old kid really grasped, or was adequately advised about, how this move would be received.

 

Mike Johnson of TSN speculates that the issue could be that Philly didn’t sign him at the end of the last college season. The timing lines up because he had apparently soured by the Worlds in May, and didn’t attend dev camp.

 

Teams treat hockey like a business and so should the players regardless of their age. Good for the kid.

 

I have no problem with where he ended up - it's his life and nothing wrong with using the rights he has - but it sounds like, after telling them at the draft he was "built to be a Flyer," once he changed his mind he wouldn't even meet or communicate with the Flyers' front office, which isn't the greatest look. Again, he's 19, so you can understand if this wasn't handled perfectly.

 

The plot thickens.

 

Fucking Biz.

 

NHL draft rights must be the most Byzantine aspect of professional sports.

 

With all due respect, you make it seem as if the 19-year-old made the decision on his own. Chance of that is nil.
EDIT: Overlooked your previous post. Don't think the "advisors" cared how it was received. Tortorella? Possible, I guess, but we don't know. That's just a spit in the wind.

 

Quote from Torts:
"I don't know Cutter from a hole in the wall."

 

I certainly didn't mean to imply this was all his doing, in this age when players have "advisers" at age 14, and I'm sure his representation was primarily responsible for how this was handled. It just seems his side could have done a better job - the story is that he refused to even acknowledge Patrick Sharp and John LeClair when the Flyers sent them to one of his games to check in on him - and my point was just that a 19-year-old might be a bit likelier to do things that way and not understand that the way he was doing it might have unintended consequences.