Ducks Cutter Gauthier Eager To Play Flyers, John Tortorella Doesn’t Care

It's been about a year since the Philadelphia Flyers dealt high-end prospect Cutter Gauthier to the Anaheim Ducks after it was revealed that the Boston College product had no interest in wearing orange and black… at least not the Flyers' orange and black.

So, now, he's eager to hit the ice against the team that drafted him. 

Meanwhile, Flyers bench boss John Tortorella really doesn't seem to care about Saturday afternoon's big off-ice sub-plot.

Gauthier said on Friday that he has had Saturday's game circled for a while.

"Obviously, with all that happened, it's definitely been a game circled on my calendar, and I'm super excited to play," Gauthier said.

"It's been a lot of anticipation leading up to the game, so I'm ready to go out there and play my game."

I get that…but the Flyers didn't really want to trade him, they didn't really have much of an option when it became clear that Gauthier didn't want to wear a Flyers sweater.

Now, how does John Tortorella feel about this? I think you can probably wager a solid guess.

He doesn't care. 

What I'll be interested to see is if Flyers players care. Will they try to rough up Gauthier?

I mean, we saw this recently with Patrik Laine, who flamed the Blue Jackets organization before returning to Ohio as a member of the Montreal Canadiens.

One thing I do know is that Gauthier will not have the red carpet rolled out for him when he and the Ducks arrive in Philadelphia for a game at the Wells Fargo Center on January 11.

But, hey, he made his decision, and honestly, we've seen virtually the same situation work out in the Flyers' favor with Eric Lindros. 

Plus, while the Gauthier pick didn't pan out, I think most fans would tell you that they'd happily let Gauthier walk in favor of Flyers rookie Matvei Michkov.