Inside Flyers star Sean Couturier’s 21-month journey to get back on the ice

When 3-year-old Ella Couturier sees the Flyers logo, she understands her dad plays hockey for them. But the memories, if they exist, of him actually playing come from a year and a half ago, half a lifetime for Ella, and too long for Sean Couturier to know if his daughter can truly recall any of it.

At 30, Couturier should have at least a few more years of good hockey in him. But serious injuries that required two back surgeries have held him from the game since Dec. 18, 2021 and cast doubt over the rest of his career. He has not played a game in 638 days and has missed the Flyers’ last 135 games overall.

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It’s been a long road to recovery with multiple false starts, but Couturier is determined to make it back to being the player he once was: a former Selke Trophy winner, the Flyers’ top-line center, and one of the best two-way forwards in the NHL.

As much as he enjoys time with his daughter, Couturier wants to be the one she’s watching on the ice, not the one she’s sitting next to on the couch.

As Flyers training camp, which opens Thursday, approaches, there are still a lot of question marks surrounding Couturier’s health, availability, and ability to rediscover the form that made him the elite player he was before the injury.

But Couturier is determined that Ella’s knowledge of her father’s time as a Flyer stem from her own memories rather than stories of a great career that ended too soon.

Couturier’s family has seen him experience injuries and struggles over the years, but the hardest thing they endured, up until these back issues, also was the best thing for his career.

At 14 years old, Couturier moved from Bathurst, New Brunswick, to Saskatchewan, a 41-hour drive stretching across more than 2,400 miles. It’s a huge move for anybody that age, but add in Couturier’s introverted nature and the cultural differences, and it made it one of the toughest hurdles he’s faced to date.

“I remember wanting to go back home — I was a little homesick and didn’t really want to stay there,” Couturier said. “But them pushing me, even if it was tough, them pushing me to stay there really helped me today be the person I’ve become, and in overcoming things, and really helped me mature at a really young age.”

It was a necessary move for Couturier’s development. His hometown is small and didn’t provide the level of competition Couturier needed. In his year with Saskatchewan AAA, Couturier won the league championship, and his career took off from there. Four years later in 2011, he was drafted No. 8 overall by the Flyers out of Drummondville of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

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Couturier made the Flyers that year as a 19-year-old. He contributed consistently from there, rising up the ranks until his career quietly came to a halt on Dec. 18, 2021. After playing 19 minutes and 44 seconds that night and notching an assist in a win over Ottawa, he took maintenance day for “various upper and lower body injuries.” He hasn’t put on a game jersey since.

Over the past 21 months, the “ifs” have scratched around his consciousness. But Couturier quickly shakes them off because “quitting was never an option.” That got harder and harder to do as his journey back to the ice has stretched longer and longer.

“After the first surgery, I didn’t have any questions,” Couturier said. “I was like ‘OK, let’s do the surgery. I’ll be right back in 3-4 months.’”

Couturier knew that surgery, which occurred on Feb. 11, 2022, would knock him out for the rest of the season, so he set his focus on the following training camp. When his teammates returned to Philadelphia that September, he was out there skating with them. But as workouts intensified, so did the twinges of pain in his back, glutes, and legs. On Sept. 19, he announced he had stopped skating because of pain. Further attempts to return failed and, finally, Couturier, the medical staff, and the doctors determined he needed back revision surgery in October.

“Then the second surgery came around. It’s like, ‘Even if I am able to get back to playing, am I going to be back to the player I was?’ And then you question is it worth it, health-wise, going through these surgeries?”

After the setback, every bit of pain came with questions and doubts, making it hard to distinguish between necessary pain and warning pain. But looking back at everything 14-year-old Couturier sacrificed to pursue his hockey dream makes it even more important 30-year-old Couturier keeps fighting.

The physical grind includes more hours of work than anyone realizes, longtime teammate Scott Laughton said, but it was the mental grind he really saw Couturier struggling with. Although quiet, Couturier has always been a strong presence in the locker room, and suddenly he was confined to solo rehab skates.

The days, which dragged into months, got lonely. Occasionally, another player would be injured and would join him, which was “not nice for them, but fun for me,” Couturier said. But for the most part, Couturier was left to skate by himself (along with the medical staff) while his teammates practiced, played, and traveled.

However, his teammates tried to prevent him from getting too wrapped up in his own bubble. Laughton said they made sure that Couturier still attended dinners, played cards, and competed in the team’s fantasy football league.

While it wasn’t the same as being able to play every night, it at least allowed him to spend time with the guys.

Couturier finally can sit still for long periods of time and be comfortable. He can lift Ella. He can chase her. He can help his wife around the house. Being able to go about his daily life — including the more strenuous activities his job requires — without pain has made it obvious just how much he’s healed since last season. But so many questions remain.

He has pushed himself in the weight room. He’s skated long and hard with Ella watching from the glass, her head tracking her dad up and down the ice. The soreness Couturier felt at the beginning of the summer has faded to nothing.

What Couturier hasn’t done, however, is take full contact. That’s not just because of his status but also because other players don’t want to risk injuries themselves in the offseason.

That’s why Couturier was desperate to make it back last season, like his former teammate Kevin Hayes (whom he consulted) did the previous season, even just to test his injury and struggle through a few games. It had been five months since his second surgery, which carried a 3-4 month recovery. He had moved from solo rehab skates to participating in morning skates with the team. Now he wanted to get into a game.

But the Flyers organization wasn’t on board. Coach John Tortorella, along with the medical staff and general manager Danny Brière, instead elected to play it safe and hold him out of the final games of the season.

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“It was frustrating,” Couturier said. “Still is, kind of. I mean, it’s behind me. There’s nothing I can do now. … But it just made my summer a little more miserable, just questioning myself all the time.

“It’s like two years without planning.”

The questions go beyond the physical. When Couturier left, he had just turned 29 and was entering his prime. In his last four full seasons before the back injury, he had averaged 0.91 points per game, a rate only bettered by 30 players leaguewide. Couturier also had just signed a massive eight-year, $62 million ($7.75 million AAV) contract, and, with former captain Claude Giroux in the final year of his deal, he was poised to become the new long-term face of the Flyers.

Two losing seasons later, the Flyers have shifted their attention to the youth. Since Couturier last played, they also have hired a new president of hockey operations in Keith Jones, a new general manager in Brière, and a new coach in Tortorella. The Flyers have made it clear they are no longer building around their top veterans to win now but instead looking to develop their young players for sustainable future success. Couturier is no longer the star centerpiece but a veteran who will show the youth the way. Even though Couturier didn’t sign on for a rebuild, he wants to be a part of it.

“I just want to be a part of this, this rebuild from the ground up,” Couturier said in April. “I just don’t want to be the guy that’s coming when everything’s nice and things are going well. I want to go through the ups and downs and grow as a team and be a part of that.”

But Couturier, despite being the longest-tenured Flyer, feels he has to prove himself to the locker room. Out of the forwards who Couturier played with, only three regulars remain — Joel Farabee, Travis Konecny, and Laughton.

Young centers Noah Cates and Morgan Frost, who just signed bridge deals to stay with the team, spoke in awe of how much they learned from the few minutes Couturier practiced with them last season.

“It’s a little weird where I feel like I have a lot to prove coming in, a lot of new teammates since the last time I played,” Couturier said. “Not many guys left that were there. … Excited to fit into the group again.”

Couturier is determined to get back to the player he was, but is that still the player the Flyers need?

“I think any team would love to have him,” Laughton answered. “I mean, he won the Selke.”

Couturier’s presence brings confidence to the whole team given his prowess both offensively and defensively, Laughton said. And Couturier’s intelligence is like a real-time 101 class on how to think the game for the organization’s young centers. Even Laughton, who is just a year younger, continues to learn from Couturier, and it’s been clear in the unofficial team skates ahead of camp just how good and smart Couturier still is.

“I think just having that presence back is gonna be huge for our group,” Laughton said. “And I don’t think he has to prove much. I think he’s proved throughout his career how good of a player he is.”

The Flyers also remain captain-less, and Couturier’s quiet, lead-by-example style will be an asset. Laughton, who wore the only letter last year, spent the summer in conversation with Couturier about what their leadership should look like.

“I don’t think leadership’s all about one or two guys,” Laughton said. “It’s a collective unit, but it’s nice to have him back in the room just to be able to lean on [him] for different things.”

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As a friend, Laughton is excited for Couturier’s return after supporting him through the physical and mental struggles. As a player, Laughton’s excited for a chance to potentially play on a line with him, something that hasn’t happened often despite being teammates for a decade — “which is kind of wild to me.”

In fact, Laughton hopes Couturier’s return is so successful, he outlasts Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham to become the longest-tenured athlete in the city.

“I always try and razz him about being the longest-tenured [Flyer],” Laughton said with a laugh. “Once [Graham] is gone, Cootsy takes over.”

But before Couturier can picture taking that title or even playing in his first exhibition game, he has to get through Tortorella’s notoriously hard training camp.

“Even the guys who have done it, they’re still talking about it,” Couturier said. “So yeah, I’m a little nervous for that. But at the same time, I’m just happy to be back with the boys and skating with them.”