VOORHEES, N.J. — There are no concerns moving forward about the nature of the relationship between John Tortorella and Sean Couturier, the coach emphatically declared on Friday in his final media availability of the season, while also directing some pointed comments toward Couturier’s agent.
Tortorella, who scratched the captain for two games on March 19 and March 21, said he was surprised by Couturier’s suggestion at the time that there was a lack of communication prior to the decision. The Flyers went 1-0-1 with Couturier out and beat the Bruins in his return to the lineup on March 23, but that was immediately followed by an 0-6-2 stretch that ultimately cost them a playoff spot.
“Why wouldn’t I communicate with Sean if I’m taking him out of the lineup? Did you think to ask yourself that? Why wouldn’t I? I did,” Tortorella said.
“What happens on a game day, I’ll put the lineup up at 8 o’clock in the morning. … I went to (the healthy scratches) the day before. I sat with Sean. Not going to tell you what I said. We had a discussion as to why he was coming out. I didn’t want him to come to the board in the morning and see he was out.
“Why would I want to disrespect him that way?”
Tortorella suggested that because Couturier hadn’t ever been scratched before, it was a foreign situation for the 31-year-old veteran center.
“I know what Sean said to you guys after,” Tortorella said. “It kind of caught me off-guard a little bit, but I think it’s the first time Sean’s been through something like that. So, it really wasn’t a big deal for me. I think it turned into a bunch of drama.”
Tortorella continued: “Now, whether the player agrees with it or not — and Sean didn’t. That’s what I love about him. He didn’t. He disagreed. And we just talked (on Thursday), and we disagreed on a lot of stuff. That’s what I love about him. He’s willing to say what’s on his mind. That’s how our relationship is going to grow. … I’m not in the business to disrespect anybody and if I take a guy of that stature out, I’m going to communicate what it was (for), and I felt I did.”
Tortorella was critical of Couturier’s agent, Erik Lupien, who spoke to The Athletic after Couturier initially was scratched and called into question whether Tortorella had been communicating well enough with Couturier.
“He gets to pound his chest, some little pissant out there pounding his chest that really doesn’t know what’s going on with Sean and I,” Tortorella said of Lupien. “I get he’s trying to protect him, but it turned into a situation where… I get he’s the captain and the timing of it all isn’t great. But I’m not going to — the captaincy is not going to stop me from holding people accountable. And if I determine that other players are playing better … and it was going on for a while, Sean had struggled for a while prior to that, I’m going to make that call.”
Lupien declined to respond to Tortorella’s comments when contacted by The Athletic on Friday afternoon.
To Tortorella’s point about the timing, Couturier had been in the spotlight over the final few weeks due to his late-season struggles. His downturn seemed to coincide with a two-game absence due to injury on Jan. 13-15.
At the time of the injury, he had 10 goals and 19 assists for 29 points in 40 games, while averaging 20 minutes and three seconds per game. He managed just one goal and eight assists for nine points after the injury, in his final 34 games — along with a minus-21 rating — resulting in a diminished role.
“My game itself never really came back after that, if you really look back at it. But I was just trying to grind through it, show up every night, and help the team win in every way I could,” Couturier said. “Obviously, wasn’t good enough. I guess I never really found that jump that I had earlier in the year.”
Did Tortorella perhaps lean on Couturier a bit too heavily in the first half? Not in his view. After all, Couturier was as much of a reason as anyone on the roster for the Flyers’ surprising first half. In a season in which Tortorella was preaching a more up-tempo system, Couturier was having no trouble keeping up at the time.
“I don’t have a crystal ball. You think Sean was pissed off if I sat him (in March), if I’m playing him 10 or 12 minutes … he’d be pissing and moaning then, at the beginning of the season,” Tortorella said. “Absolutely not. You guys can pick it apart all you want. Coaches don’t have a crystal ball to find out what a player is going to be later in the year.”
Ironically, Couturier said he was “feeling better as the year went on,” whereas early on he “was more banged up at times, and got through it.”
He made no excuses about his failure to produce late in the season.
“I just plain and simple sucked down the road,” he said. “It’s mental, I think, a lot of it. You don’t play for almost two, three years, at that stage of the year you go through some ups and downs throughout the (season), and it’s how you handle them. I think I can maybe learn from this experience.
“My first 40 games were I thought pretty good, honestly, especially coming back off of these two back surgeries. I think I somewhat proved that I can still be a good player in this league. I still have the belief and the confidence that I’ll be back to that level next year. I’ve just got to put the work in this summer to get back at that level.”
For his part, Flyers general manager Daniel Briere gave a strong vote of support for Tortorella and the coaching staff on Friday for the way they handled the season as a whole.
“I’ve been really happy with what they’ve done, where they took this team, how they were able to get them to believe in themselves,” Briere said. “Early in the year, we were saying we were hoping this team would play some meaningful games down the stretch, and we took it to Game 82. It was close for the playoffs, and obviously we’re disappointed in that.
“I’m proud of the players, but I’m also proud of the coaching staff and what they’ve done.”
If there were any doubts that the 65-year-old Tortorella still has a passion for the job, they were put to rest on Friday. Next season will his 23rd behind the bench of an NHL team.
“I am as energized as I’ve ever been,” he said. “This team here, the organization, I love working here. I’m already thinking about next year.”
(Photo of John Tortorella: Len Redkoles / NHLI via Getty Images)
