John Tortorella took a risk in scratching Sean Couturier. It appears to have paid off

When asked if John Tortorella’s decision this week to scratch Sean Couturier for two games was taken by him as an attempt to jolt the club, veteran defenseman and new acquisition Erik Johnson gave a telling non-answer.

“I don’t know. I think every coach is different, and has different ways of pushing buttons,” he responded.

Pushing buttons. Yep, this was a week of classic Tortorella button-pushing, of both his own team and the hockey world at large.

He kicked off the week by telegraphing a Couturier scratch via line combinations at Monday’s practice. Then, on Tuesday, he scratched Couturier, but made sure to delegate pre-morning skate media duties to assistant coach Rocky Thompson rather than face questions about the looming decision himself, and then forcefully refused to address it after the game as well. Next, in the wake of a national debate — one could even call it an uproar — after the initial scratch, Tortorella doubled down and sat Couturier again on Thursday, once more allowing an assistant (this time Brad Shaw) handle postgame interview duties rather than directly answer for his choice.

The result? The entire week became a sideshow, with Couturier’s status and the nature of the player/coach relationship the subject of constant speculation by media outlets all over North America, with the actual hockey games holding only secondary importance to the all-consuming power of The Narrative.

Secondary to everyone except the Flyers team, that is. Because a funny thing happened in the midst of the circus: the Philadelphia Flyers, fresh off two consecutive losses in which they allowed six goals, stabilized — in spite of a brutal slate of matchups with high-powered Toronto, red-hot Carolina, and the team with the best record in the NHL in Boston.

They took down the Maple Leafs in a nail-biter. They nabbed a hard-fought point via an OT loss in Carolina. And then, on Saturday, with Couturier back in the lineup, they took down the league-leading Bruins, a club that they hadn’t defeated since October of 2021, in dramatic fashion via a late Tyson Foerster goal.

A three-loss week, and the Flyers’ playoff chances would have been in serious jeopardy. Instead, they’re now rock-solid. Despite the sideshow — and perhaps because of it — the Flyers are undeniably in a far better spot this Sunday than last Sunday.

Tortorella took a big risk in scratching his captain, a move not attempted for over a decade by an NHL coach. But it appears to have paid off.

Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. The Flyers didn’t magically start playing truly incredible hockey this week. Their victory over Toronto was aided by the Leafs hitting five goal posts. The Carolina loss, while impressive, still was a loss. And the win over the Bruins was a classic toss-up contest that could have went either way.

The Flyers didn’t deliver a dominant week, 2-0-1 record notwithstanding. And against this kind of competition, that was never going to happen. Their lineup is just too limited — already lacking superstar-level talent, now Philadelphia is essentially dressing two third pairs on defense (one an all-rookie duo) and both of their first pair blueliners are almost certainly banged up. This is not a team built right now to take apart opponents, particularly playoff-bound ones.

But they’re back to playing the way they must, in order to give themselves a chance. They’re checking tighter, they’re skating harder, and they’re once again playing cohesive hockey.

“I think it’s really important, with the changes in personnel and some of the youth back there, that it needs to be connected,” Tortorella said after Saturday’s win. “We really concentrate on being connected defensively. I thought we did a pretty good job of that.”

The result of that renewed “connection?” Boston could manage a mere 20 shots on goal, well below their season average of 29.6.

“I think we kept the game where we wanted it. We didn’t give them much at all,” Sam Ersson said.

So can this week’s improvement at least in part be attributed to the jolt that comes with a scratch of the team’s captain? It’s impossible to know for sure. They were back to playing more like the best version of themselves, though.

“I think, overall, we have played very good defensively all year long. The amount of blocked shots we have, it’s incredible,” Ersson said.

Ersson was correct to state that the Flyers’ commitment to shot blocking has been an essential element of their success. But in the lead-up to Couturier’s scratch, their shot blocking wasn’t “incredible” anymore. In the four games prior to this week, the Flyers weren’t throwing their bodies around with the same reckless abandon that had become such a staple of their game. They managed 15, 12, 18 and 16 blocks in those contests, not cracking the 20-block threshold even once.

On Tuesday and Thursday, however? They were credited with 36 and 27 blocks respectively. And not coincidentally, the days of six-goal games by the opposition ended too, despite all of Toronto, Carolina and Boston ranking in the NHL’s top-10 in goals scored.

Ersson theorized that part of the reason for the defensive improvement this week was that the new faces on defense are better adapting to the Flyers’ system. Tortorella didn’t buy that.

“Well, it’s not like they’re learning a new system – this isn’t rocket science. This is just playing the proper way away from the puck,” he said.

In other words, a mindset change. A mindset change that, one could certainly argue, was achieved via an attention-grabbing scratch — a scratch that risked instead sparking a full-scale revolt of players livid to see their team leader being embarrassed on a national level.

And that was just the risk on the team level. Couturier’s response to the benching was also a complete unknown. And at least at first, Couturier’s public response was significantly more forceful than Tortorella and the Flyers likely anticipated.

Couturier has never been one to rock the boat through the media over the course of his long NHL career. But his comments on Tuesday were uncharacteristically controversial, as he openly expressed his dissatisfaction. And then, later that night, his agent echoed those same concerns on-the-record to The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz, articulating Couturier’s biggest issue: a belief that communication between player and coach had been lacking for weeks regarding the specific reason why Couturier’s minutes had been cut and now, why he was being scratched. It understandably fed the public perception of a Tortorella/Couturier disconnect.

On Saturday, Couturier could have further escalated the situation, ensuring that this story would not leave the public consciousness anytime soon even with the captain’s banishment to the press box at an end. Instead, Couturier made sure to downplay everything, and avoid any juicy quotes hinting at continued behind-the-scenes drama.

“I mean, it’s behind me now. I don’t want to really talk about it. I just want to help the team in any way I can,” he said.

Couturier even explicitly threw cold water on the idea that he and Tortorella’s relationship has been fractured as a result of the week’s event.

“It’s all good,” Couturier said when asked of the relationship. “It’s always been good, honestly. At the time, it just… it’s tough to hear that (you’re a scratch). You want to help in any way you can at this time of the year.”

Now, does this mean that there is definitely no lingering Couturier/Tortorella disconnect? Of course not. Players hold things back in on-the-record conversations with the media all the time. But even if Couturier was lying on Saturday, he at least cares enough to lie. He cares enough about the team and his future interactions with Tortorella to avoid being a present-day distraction, to pass up the temptation to try and win a war of public words with his coach and further enflame the situation.

And that’s a very good sign that the scratch decision isn’t going to bite Tortorella, at least in the short-term during this playoff push.

Couturier’s teammates also had nothing but praise for how their captain handled the situation behind closed doors this week. Apparently, he celebrated in the locker room with the gang after Tuesday’s win, and was eating dinner with the group after Thursday’s road loss, trying his best to be supportive even in the midst of his own personal frustration.

“I think for Coots, I can speak on just being the ultimate pro on the entire process,” Johnson said. “Him being our captain, he really led by example through this process. It wasn’t easy on him, you could tell, but he still came to the rink with a great attitude and led by example.”

As for the impact of the two-game scratch on Couturier’s play? At the very least on Saturday, it didn’t hurt.

Couturier didn’t score a goal or produce a point. But his line with Olle Lycksell and Noah Cates was quite effective, generating 12 shot attempts and allowing the Bruins only three.

“Their line, I think, carried a lot of momentum for us,” Travis Konecny said. “When we dipped, I thought they came out and did a great job of getting it back.”

And by Couturier’s own admission, he had more energy on Saturday after getting a few games off.

“Yeah, I definitely felt fresh. Had a week to just recover, refocus, recharge the battery,” he said.

Tortorella continues to stay mum regarding the specific reasons behind the scratch. But general manager Daniel Briere — on the Snow the Goalie Press Row Show prior to puck drop on Saturday — did speak to what some of the organizational thought process might have been.

He acknowledged the possibility that Couturier may be a bit gassed, especially given how hard the coaches leaned on him during the season’s first half, when Morgan Frost had yet to gain Tortorella’s confidence and Scott Laughton was in a deep slump of his own. Of course, the Flyers can’t now turn back the clock and magically morph some of those 20-minute nights in November and December into 16-minute ones. But they do need to find some way to get more from Couturier over the final weeks of the season and potentially into the playoffs. Briere, at least, theorized that Tortorella’s move may be a way to get more from the captain in spite of being worn down, and allow him to tap into reserves that he doesn’t even know he has.

“I think it’s gonna help him. I think it’s gonna put him back on track,” Briere said on the podcast. “It gives him the chance to refocus, maybe get angry a little bit. Because when you play with an edge, I remember as a player even myself, you play with an edge, you’re able to dig a little bit deeper and find a little bit more. I hope Sean uses that to prove to his coach and everybody else that he’s still the player that he was in the first half of the season.”

That’s about as forthright of answer as fans are likely to receive regarding the “real” reason for the Couturier scratch.

It remains to be seen whether the gambit works. But at the very least, Couturier’s performance on Saturday didn’t rule out the possibility. It certainly didn’t appear like Couturier was sulking.

“Coots played well. Yeah, he played well,” Tortorella tersely said when asked to evaluate Couturier’s game.

There are lot of ways the Couturier scratch could have backfired on Tortorella. The team could have faltered even more defensively this week, in the absence of their best two-way center. The players could have started to tune out their coach, rather than play an even more cohesive brand of hockey. And Couturier himself could have remained obstinate, making his continued dissatisfaction known and creating a distraction for the team in the midst of a tight playoff race. These were all plausible outcomes.

Instead, the team righted the ship against three high-end opponents, and Couturier swallowed his pride for the good of the club.

“I know he’s a prideful guy, and he wanted to be in the lineup,” Johnson said. “But we’re gonna need him. We’re gonna need everybody. He went through the entire scratch like a true pro.”

Now, the incident seems to be in the rearview mirror — that was the theme that Couturier was intent on driving home after Saturday’s win.

“It all worked out well,” he said. “We got three out of four points. Now five out of six. I thought as a team, we all responded really well.”

Could there be long-term aftershocks from the scratch that have negative consequences for Tortorella down the road in terms of his standing and credibility with the team? Sure, it’s possible. There are only so many bombs a coach can throw into a locker room without potentially fatal fallout. But in the here and now, Tortorella’s move worked. The Flyers are once again playing competitive hockey, regardless of opponent. A locker room mutiny never came. And the player at the center of everything is once again saying all the right things in public.

“It’s behind us now. It’s behind me,” Couturier affirmed. “I’m just going to try to help this team in any way I can, like I’ve always been doing.”

Now, the week-long sideshow can mercifully cease, and the focus can once again return to actual hockey.

Until, of course, Tortorella decides to push yet another one of his buttons.