MONTRÉAL — After a historically bad season, the Philadelphia Flyers earned a top-five draft pick. On Thursday, they used it to bring in a young talent, selecting power forward Cutter Gauthier with the fifth overall pick.
Gauthier, who has been a part of the U.S. National Team Development Program (U.S. NTDP,) brings size, versatility and a scoring touch to an organization that lacked all three of those things last season.
At 6-foot-3 and 194 pounds, the 18-year-old Gauthier is already bigger than all but four of the Flyers’ forwards (Sean Couturier, Kevin Hayes, James van Riemsdyk, and Zack MacEwen are the only ones who top him in height and weight). The Flyers have emphasized that they want to become “harder to play against,” and one way to do that is to get bigger and stronger. Gauthier told The Inquirer at the NHL combine that he plays his best hockey when he uses his size.
