The biggest reason of all, coming from insiders, was that he wanted to play closer to home. The Salem, NJ, native grew up in the Philadelphia area and everybody expected them to make an offer for his services.
With the most recent announcement that Flyers left wing James Van Riemsdyk and his hefty $7.0M AAV are on the market, Jeff Marek confirmed that they had a deal in place during the summer to move him, in order to create cap space for Johnny.
It is believed that the receiving team wanted to make a similar trade to what the Flames did with Monahan and give a 1st rounder with their player for future considerations. Flyers did not buy in and it ultimately cost Johnny Gaudreau. Johnny had made his intentions clear that Philly was is number one landing spot.
Moving up to this day, the Flyers have been struggling real bad and they're expected to move JVR for possibly not much. If they had signed Gaudreau, would they be in a different position? Or would they still be chasing Connor Bedard?
