One possibility is that Gauthier wanted to sign right after his college season and play immediately, presumably so that he could chop out an ELC year. But for a club going nowhere, that would have been an awful decision as it would have wasted a cost-controlled year. Regardless, we know they couldn’t fit him anyway last March because they said as much vis-à-vis the bonus money. It’s no secret that Fletcher had them with almost no cap space, which is crazy on a totally different level for a team that ended up 7th worst overall, but I digress. We don’t know if it was Fletcher or Briere that was at the helm during the bonus (Briere was interim GM from March 10 until May 11), and while that may not have mattered to Gauthier, it could have just been the kind of situation that led to everything breaking down. Briere said he pushed to get him signed after the WCs in May 2023, but was told then Gauthier wouldn’t sign with the Flyers. I don’t recall where I read it, but some journalist I can’t recall (pardon what that sounds like) claimed Briere tried to move him at the draft, mentioning that he was offered to Montreal for #5 but the Habs opted for Reinbacher.
Other explanations notwithstanding, I’m assuming he wanted to burn the ELC year by signing in March 2023 and being guaranteed he’d play at least 10 NHL games. If that’s true, and to be clear I do not, then I don’t know that I’m all that sympathetic to his plight. Plus, I’m not sure a player would really be making out in that scenario. Sure, they could sign their next next contract earlier, but they’re likely to earn even more signing that next contract when they’re 23 rather than 22 simply because they would likely have an even better year of production with the former rather than the latter. Again, I’m speculating, even though March 2022 seems like it’s when it went bad.
