Cutter Gauthier Will Not Be Attending Philadelphia Flyers Development Camp

With development camp underway, this is the first chance for Philadelphia Flyers fans to see some of the team’s most recent draft picks. Eight of the team’s 10 draft picks from this past week will be in attendance. Contractual obligations are keeping Matvei Michkov away while Russian goaltender Yegor Zavragin will also not be in attendance.

One of the other big names not attending the development camp is Cutter Gauthier, the Flyers 2022 first round pick. Danny Briere confirmed the news during his post free agency press conference on Saturday.

“Cutter was invited, declined to come. We’re assuming that is because he’s played a lot of hockey with the World Championships and lots of travel. We’re not too worried about that.”

While the Flyers hadn’t spoken to Gauthier at that time, that is a fair assumption. For Team USA, the World Championships were held in Finland. The games were played all within a two week span. Gauthier impressed during his time, scoring seven goals in 10 games. Team USA would fail to medal, however.

This isn’t the most amount of games that Gauthier has played in a single season, but it’s more so the travel that likely has him wanting to take a break. This also doesn’t mean there is any kind of disconnect between him and the Flyers. Briere was confident of that and reiterated his lack of worry for the situation.

“We’ll find out a little bit more. We’re trying to figure out why he didn’t want to come, but at this point I’m not too worried about that.”

There is also a rule with collegiate players that a team can only cover the cost of coming to development camp one time. If a player is invited and wants to attend after that, they would need to cover the costs themselves. That includes any transportation, food, or a place to stay will attending camp. This could’ve played into things with Gauthier as well. He was in attendance at last year’s development camp so he used up his one allowed Flyers-paid camp. It’s likely not easy for a college player to be able to cover the cost of everything on his own so it would make sense if that was another reason.

Gauthier will be returning to Boston for his sophomore year of college and could turn pro shortly after. The Flyers have yet to sign him to his entry-level contract.