“He’s not allowed to have a bad night or take a night off. He’s not allowed. We’re just not good enough for him to be average.”
Those were John Tortorella’s words regarding Sean Couturier after Saturday’s 3-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken and our old pal, Dave Hakstol.
They came post-game after Tortorella said he gave Couturier an earful for the Kraken’s second and tying goal, early in the third period.
Couturier badly misplayed a nothing dump-in that took a strange bounce he wasn’t ready for. The puck slipped right past him and onto the stick of Jared McCann. Couturier got his stick in McCann’s shooting lane, but the deflected shot caught Cal Petersen off guard and went into the net.
It was a rare gaffe from Couturier and one we almost never see from him in his own end, which is likely why the play stood out so much.
Fittingly, he got the goal right back just five minutes later, celebrating in a fashion the coach thought was directed at him for the berating earlier in the period.
“That was eff you to me, yeah, I’m sure it was,” Tortorella said. “That’s what I like about him though. He’s a crusty old pro.”
It’s just another example of Tortorella effectively holding his players (even the top contributors) accountable, and pushing all the right buttons. We’ve seen it work with Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost, Cam Atkinson, and now Couturier.
We haven’t gotten too many thoughts from Torts on Couturier in their short time together, maybe in part due to his mostly clean sheet. It feels even less frequent considering Coots sat out the entire first year of Tortorella’s tenure due to injury. The only other recent comments that come to mind are the ones that followed a practice on January 9.
“Quite honestly before he started playing, he was just a pain in my ass. There was [sic] complaints about this, complaints about that. He was just miserable cause he wasn’t playing.”
After he started playing though, Tortorella knew he had a seasoned veteran he could lean on in Couturier, in spite of some early misgivings.
“When I watched the first couple weeks I said, ‘oh my God is he that slow?’ and I keep on watching him and I don’t think he’s slow. I just have a different respect for him as I see him day in and day out… I’m very, very happy and a little bit surprised how quickly he’s gotten a lot of things back in his game, and there’s a lot more there. I think Sean knows that, but I’m impressed how he’s handled himself.”
To be fair, Couturier’s offensive production is down, and it’s probably safe to assume that’s what the coach is referring to. He is on just an 18 goal & 50 point pace, a far cry from the 30+ goal, 76 point efforts he had 2017-2018 & 2018-2019. Tough to use this season as a measuring stick, however. A year and a half lost to injury was going to take its toll no matter how you slice it. The Flyers weren’t sure what version of Sean Couturier they’d be getting back.
What’s encouraging is that the only aspect still missing from his game appears to be finishing.
Evolving-Hockey calculates his individual expected goals at 16.87, good enough for fourth best on the team. Couturier has only netted 11 total goals though, possibly indicating some bad luck. Of course, in the years in which he topped 30 goals, Couturier had the benefit of Claude Giroux as a line-mate. Regardless, I think this year may largely be an anomaly, and we’ll gradually see a return to true form.
It’s difficult to argue with Tortorella’s comments about needing Couturier at his best on a nightly basis. We’ve seen what happens when he’s not. If he’s not up for top-line shutdown minutes, the Flyers will get caved in by elite teams like Colorado, Boston, and Tampa.
Torts’ remarks reminded me of a conversation Keith Jones and Mike Milbury had when the two worked for NBC back in 2020.
Seems like that’s still the case.
