Sean Couturier responds to healthy scratch: "Just gotta leave my ego aside"

The big question in the wake of Monday’s Flyers practice was simple: Would John Tortorella, as the tea leaves seemed to imply, actually scratch Sean Couturier on Tuesday?

Yep. He sure would.

Couturier confirmed on Tuesday morning following a long skate with other presumptive healthy scratches — Cam Atkinson, Denis Gurianov and Marc Staal — that he indeed was out of the lineup for the team’s home matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“I felt the last couple games, with the limited ice time or opportunities I’ve been getting, I’ve been doing all right,” Couturier said. “But I guess we’re going with the best lineup available tonight to get a win. So it is what it is.”

That ‘best lineup available’ line very much sounded like Couturier parroting what he had recently heard from Tortorella when his head coach justified the decision; one could imagine the internal air quotes in Couturier’s mind as he recited the words. So had Couturier spoken with Tortorella to better understand the reasoning behind the scratch?

“Somewhat, but it doesn’t matter honestly what I think,” Couturier said. “Just gotta leave my ego aside, I guess, and hopefully the team finds a way to get a win here tonight, and I can get back into it soon.”

Regardless of one’s opinion on the merits of sitting Couturier — he has indeed played below his previously established standards for weeks now — it’s undeniably a bold and even risky move by Tortorella to go the healthy scratch route. Couturier, of course, is the team’s longest-tenured player and enormously well respected in the Flyers’ locker room. He’s also now the team’s formal captain — an honor that by all accounts Tortorella himself decided to bestow upon Couturier with little prompting a little over a month ago after vehemently claiming at the start of the season that he would not be naming one in 2023-24.

Sitting a player with that status and respect is a heck of a bomb to throw into a room in the midst of pushing for a playoff spot.

Also, it removes from the lineup a player with one of the highest talent ceilings on the roster. Couturier was justifiably receiving Selke Trophy buzz in late December due to his strong two-way work and his impressive comeback from a season and a half’s worth of missed games and two back surgeries. Even now, despite his struggles that began around mid-January, Couturier still is in the 83rd percentile among NHL forwards in even strength expected goal impact (per Evolving-Hockey’s RAPM model) and is averaging 1.60 Points/60 at 5-on-5 (high-end third-liner territory).

Elite metrics? No. But still clearly in-the-lineup-every-night quality.

The bigger risk is how the decision might be received in the room. Tortorella isn’t afraid to ruffle feathers in service of a larger purpose; just ask Kevin Hayes for a recap of his position switch and healthy scratch last season. But there were times in Tortorella’s first season when (at least from the outside) it seemed like the demanding head coach may have went a bit too far and risked losing the respect of the room — namely, when he scratched Travis Sanheim for a road game in Calgary that his family and friends had made the trek to attend.

There’s implementing harsh-but-fair accountability — which players tend to appreciate even through occasional grumbles — and then there’s playing unnecessary and counterproductive mind games with well-respected members of the club. Tuesday’s scratch certainly risks being taken more for the latter than the former by the group, a group that Tortorella himself has repeatedly praised for its togetherness and unity.

The clear disconnect between player and coach doesn’t help the situation, given that Couturier strongly believes that his play is starting to turn the corner, as opposed to where it was in late February, when Couturier openly acknowledged that his demotion to fourth-line center was warranted. His underlying 5-on-5 metrics in March have been comparable to fellow center Morgan Frost and far better than those of Scott Laughton. And he’s even made a few assertive plays to set up goals over the past week, namely his assist on Tyson Foerster’s garbage-time shorthanded goal last Thursday and his forecheck on Nicolas Deslauriers’ third-period tally on Saturday.

So has Tortorella pointed to specific areas where Couturier still is living up to his standards?

“Not really, I’ve gotten the same answers as you guys. ‘Just need to see more,'” Couturier noted. “Still looking to find out what that is. I’m trying every game, it’s not like I’m just sitting around or doing nothing, I think.”

That’s not to say Couturier’s recent work has been anywhere near perfect. It was his turnover — via a weak failed clear — that led directly to Boston’s fifth goal on Saturday, and it’s absolutely true that two goals in the 2024 calendar year isn’t going to cut it for a player of Couturier’s talent. He’s playing nowhere near his best hockey, and his regression to bottom-half-of-the-lineup quality over the past month has played a big role in why the team has an underwhelming 5-7-2 record since mid-February.

But there have been bright spots on the ice recently for Couturier. And presumably, a coach doesn’t give a player the captaincy unless he believes said player provides intangible value due to his mere presence on the bench and in the locker room. That seemingly played into why Laughton — who could have easily been scratched during a stretch in December and January when he scored one goal in 19 games and posted an ugly 40.67 percent xG share at 5-on-5 in the process — stayed in the lineup even during his deepest struggles this season. After all, he was the only player on the team with a letter, and scratching him not only would remove that presence, it would also risk a potential team-wide backlash against the coach.

Now, Tortorella is going that route in the midst of a tight playoff race, with a player who has an even more accomplished track record and who is wearing the actual “C” and not merely the “A” that Laughton had at the time. It’s certainly eyebrow-raising treatment, and Couturier hasn’t appreciated it.

“I feel like I’ve been putting the work in for a while,” he said. “I know I’ve been struggling. Trying to work on my game. Definitely frustrated, the way I’ve been treated around (here) I guess lately. But it is what it is.”

While one can theorize that Tortorella is playing three-dimensional chess motivational mind games with his club — and that can never be ruled out entirely — the simplest explanation tends to be the correct one. And in this case, that would be that Tortorella apparently just doesn’t believe Couturier is playing well enough right now to justify his spot in the lineup — and he’s willing to risk a potential backlash to adhere to his belief in accountability for all and to put on the ice what he believes to be, as Couturier seemingly echoed, ‘the best lineup available tonight.’

Tortorella chose not to speak with the media prior to morning skate, however, so he was not there to justify his decision. Instead, assistant Rocky Thompson took media duties on Tuesday prior to the optional skate, and gave the best answer he could when asked about Couturier’s ice time and potential status.

“Well, I think that’s more of a question for Torts, and how Torts manages his minutes,” Thompson said. “I can’t get into the mind of our head coach that way.”

Truly, few can.