Sean Couturier wants to avoid any further discussion about Philadelphia Flyers head coach John Tortorella leaving him out of the lineup for two consecutive games this past week.
The team captain was thankfully back in the lineup during Saturday afternoon’s game when the Flyers hosted the Boston Bruins and after they earned a heart-pounding 3-2 win over the Atlantic Division leaders, Couturier did not really want to address the elephant in the room.
“It’s behind me now,” he said via NBC Sports Philadelphia. “I don’t want to really talk about it. I just want to help the team in any way I can. It all worked out well, we got three out of four points and now five out of six. I thought as a team we all responded real well.”
Classic hockey captain stuff. Couturier, instead of focusing on what the team did in comparison of with and without him in the lineup, just wants to discuss the overall team success no matter who is on the ice. The Flyers have earned wins against Toronto and Boston, and then forced an overtime loss against Carolina to earn 80 percent of the available points against three teams who could be lifting the Stanley Cup this summer.
The good thing is that Couturier did actually play very well against the Bruins on Saturday, so maybe Tortorella just did a very poor job explaining exactly why he left the captain out of the lineup, and Couturier just needed some rest.
The Flyers bench boss went as far to praise the bottom-six line that Couturier centered as well as his linemates.
“I thought they checked well. I thought the line played really well,” Tortorella said. “I think Lycksell is a guy that the more and more I see him, it’s something that we’re interested in as far as what he can be. He’s had some scoring chances, too, but the other side of the puck, I think he has played pretty well.
“All three of those guys, I’d start them in the offensive zone most of the time, they had some shifts against their top lines and I think they did a pretty good job.”
The fact is that the trio of Couturier, Olle Lycksell, and Noah Cates, might have just been the Flyers’ best line against the formidable Bruins. Through 7:52 time on ice at 5-on-5, the Flyers had a total of 13 shot attempts, and only allowed three — all three of the Bruins’ attempts were high danger, but this “checking” line of the Flyers really went for volume over quality.
In terms of individual production, Couturier went pointless, had one total shot on goal (which was high danger, to be fair), and won 50 percent of his faceoffs in 13:09 TOI. Maybe not the return game he personally wanted, but they earned the win and the Flyers were really the better team when he was on the ice.
Now we just have to see if that production can get back up to snuff, or he will remain down in the team’s bottom-six forward group for the remainder of the season. He has the chance to put some points on the board against the very good Florida Panthers on Sunday evening.
