Ducks acquire Cutter Gauthier from Flyers for Jamie Drysdale, draft pick

The Ducks have acquired World Junior Championship gold medalist Cutter Gauthier from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenseman Jamie Drysdale and a 2025 second-round draft pick.

Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek said he viewed the deal as a “real, true hockey trade,” that added a forward with “elite” skating ability and an “NHL shot.” Gauthier’s athleticism dropped jaws at the scouting combine in 2022.

“He’s a shooter and a goal-scorer, but he has a nice combination of play-making ability as well,” said Verbeek, lauding Gauthier’s versatility and potential roster fit. “Not only will he be able to shoot the puck into the net, I think he’s going to be able to make other players better, too.”

Though this was a move for the future – it took a key defenseman out of the struggling Ducks’ lineup and added a forward who will finish his season at Boston College at a minimum before joining the team – Verbeek said it was motivated by what the parent club had done, or not done, on the ice this season.

“Based on all the one-goal games we’ve lost this year, I wanted to give the group someone that can help us get over the hump in a natural scoring ability situation,” Verbeek said.

Gauthier, 19, won gold with Team USA last week and tied for the tournament lead in scoring with 12 points in seven games. The fifth overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft joins a burgeoning stable of aspiring stars that now has greater positional balance.

The Ducks had all three of the Canadian Hockey League’s defensemen of the year last season. Pavel Mintyukov has been an everyday player and in just seven games Tristan Luneau, who plays the right side like Drysdale, showed enough to deeply impress both Verbeek and Coach Greg Cronin.

“Tristan, just watching him progress, get stronger and improve almost exponentially on a game-by-game basis, allowed us to make this trade,” Verbeek said.

After Luneau, Mintyukov and Olen Zellweger earned those honors, the Ducks later signed Drysdale, 2020’s No. 6 selection overall, to a three-year contract extension. Now, the 21-year-old will play the majority of that deal for an upstart Philly club that has been perhaps the biggest surprise in the Eastern Conference this season.

They’ve auditioned various power-play quarterbacks, but none the caliber of Drysdale. Despite his recent injuries, his addition gives the presently playoff-bound Flyers a win-now weapon with runway for the future in exchange for a prospect, and he could give them additional options at the trade deadline with their increasingly deep defense corps.

At the end of the day, however, Philadelphia was motivated in significant part by Gauthier’s unwillingness to engage in contract discussions. He declined to participate in development camp and Flyers GM Daniel Briere said he was not able to communicate with Gauthier or his representatives over time. When Gauthier’s performance at the World Juniors turned heads, Briere said he felt motivated to capitalize on his augmented value.

“We were hoping that, at some point, he would change his mind. He had already changed his mind,” Briere said. “He looked at us at the draft and told us that he was built to be a Flyer and wanted to be a Flyer, and then, a few months later, he told us that he didn’t want to be a Flyer.”

Given the situation, Briere had been exploring options for some time and while neither executive would specify the precise timeline of the deal, Briere intimated that the discussions were going on early in the season while Drysdale was recovering from a mid-body injury.

For the Ducks’ part, they don’t anticipate putting pen to paper with their new prized prospect imminently, but they feel confident about the relationship moving forward.

“I have talked to (Gauthier), yes, he is super excited,” Verbeek said. “We’re going to let him go about his season at (Boston College), and we will circle back with him when his season’s over.”

Gauthier has 23 points in 17 games at the NCAA level thus far and was named the most outstanding forward at the World Juniors in Sweden last week.

“We were led to believe that this player would sign with the Anaheim Ducks, so we pursued it pretty hard,” Verbeek said.