Dreger: ‘Flyers don’t have answer to why Gauthier didn’t want to play for Philadelphia’

Why did Cutter Gauthier not want to play for the Flyers? Will the Ducks continue to make moves? How does William Nylander’s deal impact Mitch Marner? Will more blueliners be dealt in the coming weeks? TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger joins SC with Jay Onrait to discuss all that and more.

Oh yeah yeah it’s time to walk over to the other side of the expansive Studio 9 our TSN hockey Insider Darren dreer’s hanging out and uh he’s not letting go of that phone because you know he can constantly be breaking trades talking to agents who knows he’s talking to right

Now how are you buddy doing okay how about you I’m great um I’m I don’t think anybody’s better than Pat for Beak he got the guy he wanted in the end but it’s uh this this is a bizarre situation are we any closer to knowing exactly why cutter goce

Wanted out of Philadelphia well there are theories out there there’s speculation but the reality is there are still more questions than answers because you’re talking about two very young players right unproven cutter GOI now property of the Ducks and Jamie Dale coming back to the Phil Philadelphia

Flyers know the tricky part of the scenario where GOI is concerned is that Philadelphia tried to engage with him and his advisor in a myriad of of different times uh I know that the brass of the Flyers went over to Sweden in an effort to meet with goce and that didn’t

Pan out other members of the organization went to Boston to meet with him on campus and he declined to meet with the representatives of the Philadelphia Flyers then so look there’s there’s a difference if you don’t want to sign you don’t have to sign yeah um but at least according to our sources

Within the organization they don’t have an answer as to why what they knew was they couldn’t wait any longer and so Danny Brier has been working on this deal for quite some time and in the end hey again for both young players both organizations let’s hope it

Works out Keith Jones seems pretty happy Pat verbeek is pretty happy this is a player he coveted now you wonder and you’ve been reporting this uh a lot of speculation about Trevor zis and it’s it’s kind of hard to believe but but then at the same time uh this is a

Player who’s Dynamic offensively and maybe lacks in other areas of the game so maybe it’s not such a big surprise that maybe Trevor Z’s name is out there no I mean his name is out there and I know that the Anaheim Ducks at least have explored the level in of interest

That there might be in Trevor zigis now I’m not suggesting that it was yesterday or it was recent I think you have to look in a bigger scope of the Anheim ducks and how they’re trying to position themselves moving forward we know he’s an elite level skill and he vowed when

He came back in the mix this year that he was going to work harder on the defensive side of his game and he is putting in the work so provided that there isn’t a regression I wouldn’t say that a Trevor zis trade is imminent but you have to explore the possibilities if

Your management of the Anaheim Ducks it feels to me Jay that if Capital if a deal like this is going down it’s more likely in the offseason okay let’s talk about the Toronto map Leafs because we are legally obliged to do so at this network William neander Deal gets done 8

Years 11 half million on the aav and it makes you already look ahead to that potential Mitch Marner unrestricted free agency July the 1st 2025 four-point night against the Sharks on Tuesday uh how does the neander deal affect the Marner potential deal well it it does uh

But it may not be as big an influence as some would expect the reality is the salary cup uh cap is going to continue to go up 877 next year so William neander uh on 115 annual average salary will take up about 13.1% of the Toronto Maple Leaf

Salary cap so do the projection to the following year when you’ve got to deal with John tovaris and Mitch Marner the assumption is that the cap could climb another $4 million is that going to be enough to appease all the contracts that Brad TR living is going to have to deal

With and representatives and I don’t have an answer for that I guess I would say no if I was pushed so maybe there’s a decision that has to be made is Mitch Marner going to be in a position where he thinks he deserves a race I would say

Yeah that’s that’s fair then you have to make a decision can you afford both the Captain John Taris and Mitch Marner and if you can’t then it gets difficult always interesting in leaf land it’s interesting everywhere everyone’s looking for help on the blue line right now um could we see some potential deals

Involving defenseman happen even over the next couple weeks before the trade deadline you could um and and maybe as we get closer to the allstar break we’re not that far away from it right and that’s not abnormal and look a deal like the one that just went down with the

Anaheim Ducks and the Philadelphia Flyers involved Jamie Dale right shot defenseman that can kind of spark the the the cycle a little bit I checked in with Calgary earlier in the day it’s quiet there not a lot has changed we’re talking about Noah hannahan we’re talking about Chris TANF you’ve got

Elias ly home there as well the Philadelphia Flyers In fairness might be one of if not the busiest team leading up to the March 8th trade deadline because now that they’ve acquired Dale no secret they would absolutely move Shawn Walker Nick sealer is there and potentially risk the line it and the

Flyers have let it be known that they’re willing to retain salary so that’s in reality that’s currency for a lot of cap teams can I go back to hanifen really quickly any chance whatsoever even though you know they seemed to have a deal earlier in the year now then they didn’t yeah any

Chance it could Circle back it could still potentially get done yeah there’s always that chance right U but if you’re Craig Conroy and Calgary you know you’re approaching a point on the calendar where you’ve got to say to him okay we know that you wanted to push away from

The offer that came a whisker away from signing $60 million deal so has there been a change of heart and there’s no doubt that there’d be dialogue between Conroy and the agent Pat Bron so I can’t say with certainty that there’s zero chance that he uh he signs because look

At his minutes J I mean he’s a 25 minute defenseman yeah for the Calgary Flames they’re a pretty good team right now he’s playing well so there’s a chance okay let’s uh let’s move on to my favorite segment in the history of the show it’s time for all of your animal dreams

Un we’re talking Safari world I was so excited about this post tubate tell us about uh this post drgs earlier this week yeah well that’s tiny the great Daye She’s a Beauty she’s N9 years old we were out for a walk now you know anyone in western Canada Northern

Ontario across the country who are used to cold climates are going to say this is ridiculous but it was it was likeus 7 we’re at the farthest point of our walk yeah and Tiny freezes up a little bit you know the CLS are starting to lift

And we had to have a heart to heart it was a little tough love I had to say to her look you’re 140 lb I don’t like my chances of carrying you back two kilometers so guess what you’re going to do you’re going to toughen up and we’re

Going to walk home and that’s what happened and uh when tiny got but that was a picture tiny at the end very gas she was done with it uh you could have probably done the fireman carry I bet well I I probably could trying to get her up over the shoulders

As long as we didn’t get it on camera we’d be okay that’s fair that’s fair thanks for this buddy appreciate it uh coming up on the television program oh so much to get to Luke Wilson stops by the breakdown super Wildcard Weekend and his thoughts on the Titans firing Mike grael