Couturier begins comeback, survives John Tortorella's demanding camp Day 1

After missing the last season and a half, Sean Couturier entered the first day of Philadelphia Flyers training camp ready to embark on a well-earned, long-awaited comeback.

His reward? Torture, courtesy of Torts, in the form of the most infamous bag skate in the NHL.

“All the other guys were giving me advice, because I didn’t do it last year,” Couturier cracked after surviving the camp-opening skate of death. “I didn’t really know what to expect. Not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous about it. But once you get going, you’re just grinding, and you battle through it.”

It’s just the first step — albeit a difficult one — in his attempt to return to action after two back surgeries combined to first cut his 2021-22 season short, and then end his 2022-23 campaign before it even began.

“This was a big test, I think,” he admitted. “This is hard on the body, it’s tough mentally. But it went pretty well.”

Couturier had pushed to return to game action for the final games of 2022-23, and he was medically cleared to do so. But out of an abundance of caution — in large part because the organization was uncomfortable throwing him back into the heart of the NHL regular season with no warmup time — the Flyers’ leadership made the call to keep Couturier out, and give him the entire summer to prepare for his true return, starting with training camp.

Unsurprisingly, Couturier hits camp raring to go. He packed on a few extra pounds of muscle to better stand up to the pounding he expects to receive, and he wants to play in as many preseason games as the organization will let him, just to be sure he’s ready both physically and mentally for Game 1. But most of all, he wants to prove to everyone — himself included — that he can be the player he once was.

“Yeah, definitely,” he responded when asked if those who doubt he can return at peak form serve as motivation for him. “I mean, they have their reasons to question or doubt, but I know what I’m capable of, and the kind of person I am, and the character that I have. Not only to them, but to myself, I want to prove that I’m able to be the player I was, if not better. So that’s always a little extra motivation, when you hear some doubters.”

And make no mistake — pre-injury Couturier was a great player, not merely a good one. From 2017-18 (his breakout offensive season) through 2020-21, Couturier finished in a tie for 29th in points scored (252) by NHL forwards, alongside Washington’s Nicklas Backstrom and the Islanders’ Mathew Barzal. And he racked up all those points despite constantly taking on the toughest assignments that the Flyers faced, earning a Selke Trophy in 2020 for his efforts.

Unsurprisingly, advanced metrics viewed his combination of offensive ability and two-way dominance with extreme favor. Per Evolving-Hockey’s public Wins Above Replacement model, Couturier ranked fourth in the league among all skaters over that four-year span, trailing only Connor McDavid, Brayden Point and Mark Stone. Per their RAPM model — which tries to isolate even strength play-driving ability — Couturier ranked in the 96th percentile during that same timeframe, in terms of his impact on his club’s expected goal differential.

Couturier may not have been a traditionally elite player — it wasn’t like he was approaching 100 points, even in his best years. But his on-ice impact was enormous.

“You go into different cities and you’re looking for a matchup for top lines, Coots is a calming presence out there,” Scott Laughton explained on Thursday. “That’s kind of been lost, obviously with him missing the last two years. But he just kind of settles down the game, takes big faceoffs, and just an overall good player.”

Now, Couturier wants to prove that he can be that same player once more, even at age 30 (soon to be 31) and in the wake of two major surgeries.

Given his medical history, Couturier is fully aware it won’t be easy. To that end, he’s started a new daily maintenance program — constructed by and with the team’s medical staff and trainers — to keep him playing. He knows that he now needs to take extra steps to give himself the best chance of staying healthy.

“Not that I didn’t take care of my body (before), but obviously having two back surgeries, it takes a little more maybe prehab or taking care of (yourself) just to make sure I maintain my health and that I feel good on a daily basis,” he acknowledged.

But that’s not what preoccupies him most. It’s getting that first big hit out of the way — which isn’t something that can happen in a practice or a half-speed scrimmage. It’s only going to feel real for Couturier when the games do. Once it does, he believes, it will ease any remaining doubts in his own mind that he’s truly ready to return.

“Not gonna lie, personally, mentally, that’s gonna be the big thing to get over with, is just play that first game and get hit, get crushed on the boards, and see how it feels,” he noted. “That’s what I kind of want. Everyone’s confident that everything’s gonna be okay — doctors, trainers. So I’m not too worried, but obviously just to feel it and actually go through it, that will probably feel better and clear my mind, that’s for sure.”

After all, Couturier isn’t aiming to merely be a bit player for the Flyers as he prepares for his first NHL games of his thirties, or one who is constantly in and out of the lineup due to various ailments. He wants to be an 82-game leader of this club, even as it embarks upon a rebuild.

And his demanding new coach is fully behind him as he tries to do so.

“I’m excited for him,” Tortorella said after the day’s sessions. “He’s been miserable not playing, and I’m really happy that he’s put in all the work that he has done, and now it’s coming together for him, getting ready for an NHL season.”

Surviving Day 1 of Torts Camp

Couturier wasn’t the only player who had to struggle through Thursday’s intense 30-ish minute skate to kick off camp, of course. It’s a requirement for every single player. They all suffered together.

But everyone made it through, which is what matters the most to Tortorella.

“That’s all that Torts cares about, is you skating to the line and making sure you don’t quit. That’s what it’s all about,” Laughton pointed out.

Tortorella added an extra wrinkle to the bag skate this year, which was pointed out by current NBC Sports Philadelphia analyst (and former player under Torts) Scott Hartnell — two additional reps added to the normal six.

That’s right — it was even more difficult than normal this time around.

“I felt our guys could handle it, and they did,” Tortorella responded.

That doesn’t mean it was easy. Cam York struggled mightily through his reps, and Laughton himself lagged at times during his, even if he ultimately finished each one.

“Don’t make me laugh, I’ll throw up,” Laughton joked to Hartnell at the start of his media session in the wake of the skate.

Struggling through the Day 1 skate isn’t necessarily a red flag, though. After all, Tortorella praised Nicolas Deslauriers last year for powering through the pain (Deslauriers didn’t have as much trouble this time around), and he had similar plaudits for York, giving him a stick tap at the end of the session during the faceoff circle stretch. For Tortorella, it’s less about how well one completes the Day 1 skate. It’s just about completing it — period.

And every single player, both veteran and rookie, cleared that bar.

“Yeah, there were some struggles, but I thought they finished what they needed to finish,” Tortorella said. “I was happy with it, how it went.”

Some may contend that such a demanding early camp skate is outdated, a relic of a former time. Laughton himself noted that he believes that the Flyers are the only team that still does it. And to be sure, the players all dread it. But Laughton does see value in the team-building aspect of such a universally-feared day.

“I think it brings all the boys together. The anxiety leading up to it with everyone, everyone talking about it, but I think definitely brings the guys together,” Laughton acknowledged. “There’s a method to what Torts does here, and it definitely brings us together.”

For Tortorella, it’s also a way to get a glimpse into the internal drive of his players, and to learn more about them as people.

“You look at Cam York out there, it was an absolute horror show for him,” Tortorella recalled. “After the second rep, I could tell he was done. But I watched Yorky… he finished every time. I went to him right after, I found him right after. It’s probably the most emotion I’ve seen out of York, I can’t tell you what he said to me.

“But he finished. That’s the key. That’s building a standard of what you have to do.”

Assorted camp notes

1. Tortorella let slip an interesting aside about Marc Staal on Thursday, who he envisions playing a big role for the rebuilding Flyers. But his “big role” doesn’t necessarily include an every-night lineup guarantee. In fact, it’s apparently the opposite.

“As I stated to him, he’s not going to get in the way of the kids, of us developing the kids. There’s going to be some nights he’s not going to play,” Tortorella bluntly stated. “But he’s going to be just as important in those nights, and those days leading up to games that he’s maybe not playing in, than he is putting the uniform on.”

Perhaps the back end will indeed be filled with young players and prospects on a nightly basis, rather than a regular top-six of York, Travis Sanheim, Rasmus Ristolainen, Nick Seeler and Sean Walker. Tortorella strongly hinted as much on Thursday.

“The team’s probably going to be younger, just as you look at the layout,” he said. “Especially our back end, that is definitely young. We’re gonna have some horror shows at night in certain games, with our young back end. But we’re going to work with them, we’re going to live with through some of the mistakes and see what we have there.”

2. Carter Hart was asked if he was willing to comment on the still-pending Hockey Canada investigation, of which the NHL has yet to report its findings. Hart largely declined to answer, just as he did at the start of last year’s camp.

“Yeah, I really don’t know. I can’t talk about it,” he said. “I wish I could, same thing (as last year). But all I know is the investigation is ongoing, and that’s all I really know.”

3. Camp invite Matt Brown was flying through the demanding Day 1 skate, seemingly desperate to impress the NHL coaches just as he did in the rookie games last weekend. Brown is currently under contract with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, but his sights are clearly set on earning an NHL deal at some point in 2023-24. He’s certainly putting his best foot forward thus far.

4. When asked if he planned to approach this season any differently than he had last year — given the fact that this year, the organization has openly acknowledged that they’re rebuilding — Tortorella provided an interesting answer.

“See, in my mind, we were rebuilding last year,” he responded. “I don’t care what we said, what was allowed to be said, or whatever. In my mind, we were rebuilding. I’m going to the second step of this here.”

In other words, Tortorella was already coaching with a rebuild mentality, even if the rest of the organization wasn’t onboard or wasn’t permitting the word to be spoken aloud to the public.

5. But what does that second step mean? For Tortorella, it appears to be the balance between developing the youngsters that will be pivotal to the success of the rebuild, while also trying to make real strides in terms of on-ice results.

“We’re going to continue to rebuild, but you still have to… not always fall on that part of it, that it’s all kids,” he explained. “I gotta look at where (Garnet) Hathaway fits. (Ryan) Poehling, where does he fit? We’ve got some penalty killers now that could change things. There’s a lot of different things that could happen. But it’s all still in the realm of we’re still going through a process of trying to be a competitive team in this league.”