Sean Couturier entered the 2023-24 season having missed nearly a season and a half of action due to a myriad of back issues. After being forced to miss the remainder of the 2021-22 season, he re-aggravated the problem over the summer and ended up missing the entire 2022-23 campaign as a result.
There was excitement regarding his return this year and after starting the season in vintage Couturier form, he has succumbed to one of his worst slumps since establishing himself as a top-flight centre in the NHL.
In his first 9 games of the season, he had 2 goals and 8 points, was a plus-1, and was averaging 19:38 TOI. After 18 games, Couturier had notched 5 goals and 14 points, was a plus-5, while averaging 19:25 TOI. He continued to improve steadily with 7 goals and 21 points, a plus-8 rating, and 19:32 TOI through 26 games. He was playing in all situations, was placed in more offensive situations and was a focus on the top unit of the power play, and it wasn’t necessary to gas himself out on the penalty kill with the numerous options they had at their disposal.
Things got a little patchy in his most recent stretch of games but after 41 tilts, Couturier had 10 goals and 30 points with a pretty good plus-12 rating, averaging 20:03 TOI. Since then, he has just 1 goal and 5 points in his last 17 games, has a mind-boggling -17 rating, and has averaged less than 17 minutes a night. In fact over his last 8 games he has not seen more than 16:16 TOI in a single game and coincidentally that coincides with his appointment as the team’s captain.
Going back to his last 10 games, he has posted a wildly horrid -14 rating, including 7 straight games with a minus. He is now playing on the fourth line alongside Nicolas Deslauriers and either Bobby Brink or Olle Lycksell, which has now lasted 4 straight games, nor is he part of the “first unit” on the downtrodden power play. So it’s no surprise that the Flyers have middled to a 5-4-1 record over that stretch.
With Couturier struggling, Cam Atkinson losing his spot in the lineup altogether, and Travis Konecny on the mend with an upper-body injury that he sustained in practice, the Flyers have needed production from other players to remain afloat. Scott Laughton leads the way with 11 points over his last 10 games, followed by Travis Sanheim’s 9 points, Morgan Frost, Owen Tippett, and Tyson Foerster’s 7 points, and Nick Seeler, Noah Cates, and Cam York’s 5 points. Foerster leads the way with 6 goals in just 6 games with Laughton, Sanheim, and Tippett each tallying 4.
You look at the plus-minus numbers and what jumps at you is the consistency from the bottom-6 compared to the top-6. Laughton carries a +13 rating, Garnet Hathaway is a plus-5, Foerster and Marc Staal are plus-4, and Ryan Poehling and Deslauriers are plus-3. Even when you look at ATOI, Couturier is only skating more than Hathaway, Cates, Brink, Lycksell, and Deslauriers.
The Flyers scheduling only gets more and more daunting as we go with a gruelling stretch of 10 games where 9 of them are against Florida, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Boston, Toronto, Carolina, Boston, Florida, and the New York Rangers. The other one game sandwiched in between these 9 is against San Jose and once they complete the gauntlet against New York, they play Montréal and Chicago. In other words, Couturier needs to return to form as soon as possible if the Flyers have any chance of remaining afloat in the playoff picture.
It’s not entirely on him as the club is without Konecny, Jamie Drysdale, Rasmus Ristolainen, and whoever they move on from ahead of the trade deadline that is just four days away. Atkinson remains snakebitten, Farabee just busted out of his lengthy goal drought, and Tippett has just 1 goal in his last 6 games. However, Couturier is their number one centre, he plays in all situations, and where he goes, the team follows.
In 2022-23, the Flyers went without a captain for the first time since 1992-93 and just the 2nd time in franchise history. They wanted to wait and see if he could return to the ice gracefully after a lengthy absence from gruelling injuries and he did just that for most of the season. Daniel Brière and company didn’t choose the veteran to don the “C” for no reason or at random:
“Sean Couturier is an ideal choice to be the next leader of the Philadelphia Flyers. Sean was drafted here and has made Philadelphia his home. I have personally seen his development from a responsible forward to one of the best two-way centermen in the game and a playoff performer. The adversity he has had to overcome has only strengthened his proven leadership. In this New Era of Orange with Dan Hilferty, Keith Jones, and John Tortorella at the helm, we couldn’t be more proud to call him captain.”
The struggles and inconsistencies that are currently plaguing him right now would have made more sense if he started out the season that way. Missing that much game action and then being thrusted into a large role would take anyone some time to adjust but it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.
Perhaps logging those heavy minutes at the beginning of the season is slowing him down now and is finally taking it’s toll but Tortorella isn’t one to wait. Ironically enough his only goal in the last 21 games came against Seattle when his emphatic celebration came after he was called out by his head coach – it’s been 9 games since and the Flyers need a lot more.
It’s only a matter of time until Couturier gets back to his vintage form but for the time being he is going to be relegated to fourth line duties with the rest of the lineup clicking. His chances will come on the second unit of the power play alongside Laughton, Brink, Atkinson, and York, but they’re really going to have to capitalize down a man for their fortunes to change – for player and team.
