So when Tocchet, in his first season as Flyers coach, had the same conversation with Couturier earlier this season, he understood what the team captain had to be feeling.<\/p>\n
Couturier is 33 years old and playing his 14th season in Philadelphia. He’s a two-time 30-goal scorer who won the 2020 Selke Trophy voted as the League’s best defensive forward. He was an offensive driver at 5-on-5 and on the power play.<\/p>\n
He also isn’t the same player since two back surgeries that cost him a season and a half from 2021-23.<\/p>\n
After the break for the 2026 Winter Olympics, the Flyers wanted to give rookie forwards Denver Barkey<\/a> and Alex Bump<\/a> more playing time and make Trevor Zegras<\/a>\u00a0a full-time center.\u00a0<\/p>\n With Christian Dvorak<\/a> and Noah Cates<\/a>\u00a0already filling two of the top three center slots, where did that leave Couturier?<\/p>\n In an uncomfortable spot for both player and coach. That’s when Tocchet approached Couturier with his idea for a redefined role.<\/p>\n Not less, but different. Harder minutes. More defensive-oriented linemates, like Luke Glendening<\/a> and Garnet Hathaway<\/a>. Less power-play time.<\/p>\n “It’s hard for me,” Tocchet said. “I can’t tell you exactly what we said, but we did a deep dive. It’s hard because I think as a coach you can only be honest with them. You’re not crushing the guy, but you have to be honest with him.<\/p>\n “Some nights he plays 13, sometimes he plays 18, 20 minutes. It depends on the game, so whether you want to call him a fourth line or whatever, I don’t even put a tag on him. He’s one of our best face-off guys. He goes out there first PK. He’s probably going to be out there in the last minute of a game. The only thing is he doesn’t play the power play as much as he used to, doesn’t play (overtime) as much as he used to. Those are the things that maybe he gives up a little bit, but the other parts of the game, the 5-on-5, are huge.<\/p>\n “So, I don’t really look at as a fourth line. I think I look at him as a guy who’s a real big utility guy for me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So when Tocchet, in his first season as Flyers coach, had the same conversation with Couturier earlier this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-599617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}