Since Cutter Gauthier was traded to the Anaheim Ducks earlier this week, reports have said that former Flyers player Kevin Hayes had something to do with it.
Hayes didn’t get along with head coach John Tortorella and was traded to the St. Louis Blues last summer.
In earlier interviews from last year, Gauthier said he’d kept in touch with Hayes.
”I’ve been pretty fortunate enough to be pretty close to Kevin for the past year,” he said in the Empty Netters podcast.
In an episode of the Flyers podcast ”Snow the Goalie,” co-host Anthony SanFilippo claimed Hayes now had a part in Gauthier refusing to play for Philadelphia, which led to him eventually getting traded.
SanFilippo first said that it had Hayes’ ’fingerprints all over this,’ and later also claimed that Hayes was ’very influential’ with Gauthier refusing to even communicate with the Flyers.
On Wednesday night, John Tortorella absolutely slammed the journalist, calling the reports ’bulls—t.’
“Is the guy here that caused Kevin Hayes a problem?” Tortorella first asked in his post-game presser.
When SanFilippo said that he was present, Tortorella absolutely slammed him.
“Are you kidding me? You think Kevin Hayes is going to do something like that?” Tortorella said. “It’s bulls–t. It pisses me off that you guys throw that s–t around and it affects someone’s life. Kevin and I had a problem, we couldn’t come to an agreement on how to play. That’s a good man. That’s a good man, and what you said is going to stay with him.
“That’s what you guys don’t understand and you’re going to sit there and say you have the right sources. I call bulls–t.”
SanFilippo responded to Tortorella’s rant with a post on X.
“Well, Torts just lit me up in his press conference about Kevin Hayes. Completely unprompted. That ought to be a joy for everyone for the next couple days,” he wrote.
Kevin Hayes has also come out and called SanFilippo a ’f—king clown’ who ’makes s—t up’ since it’s been reported. Hayes has also denied everything, calling it ’100 percent false’ in an interview with The Athletic. He’s also received death threats from upset fans.
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