Flyers’ Sean Couturier will not play Saturday against the Maple Leafs

Is Sean Couturier playing on Saturday night?

Rick Tocchet said after morning skate that Couturier would be a game-time decision, but he was not on the ice for warmups against the Toronto Maple Leafs (7 p.m., NBCSP).

“Let me go first,” Tocchet said to start his press conference on Saturday morning. “Emil [Andrae] got sent down, not because of his play, just a roster situation, a puzzle. We needed a centerman up here, because Coots was touch and go — still game-time decision — so we wanted a right-handed centerman, which is [Jacob Gaucher]."

Tocchet said that Andrae could get called up in a day or two. According to the new collective bargaining agreement rule, to avoid paper transactions, Andrae has to play a game for Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League. The Phantoms are at the New York Rangers affiliate, the Hartford Wolfpack, on Saturday.

As for the captain, Couturier said that he is day to day and feels a lot better: “We’ll see how it keeps responding over the next 24, 48 hours.”

Couturier did stay late on the ice with the healthy scratches.

Although he wouldn’t disclose the exact injury he sustained against Nashville on Thursday, and said it was pretty painful, he was just relieved teammate Noah Juulsen’s shot didn’t hit him in the face.

“It was coming right at my face. It was actually the same exact play when I lost my teeth in juniors, same exact thing, gave it to my D, went to the net and it was coming at me,” he said of his time with Drummondville of what is now called the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League.

“This time, the shot wasn’t as hard,” he said, smiling. “So I was good enough to respond. That’s what I told Jules.”

Couturier played the rest of the first period but left during the first intermission to make sure it wouldn’t get worse.

“A little bit of the pain, and knowing him, he’s a courageous guy,” Tocchet said of Couturier. “Sometimes as a coach, you got to make decisions for players because some players, they’ll play every game, even though they shouldn’t. So we’ll make that call later today.”

For Gaucher, a late bloomer who made his NHL debut last season, it’s been a long road in pro hockey. Passed over in the 2019 NHL draft, the now 24-year-old signed a contract with the Phantoms in 2022 and spent the season with Reading of the ECHL. The past two seasons, he’s been primarily with the Phantoms — earning a two-year extension last December — and this year, he has a goal and two points in eight games.

“Yeah, really excited,” he said when asked about the chance to skate in his fifth NHL game on Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs (7 p.m., NBCSP). “Nice opportunity for me to get back here and show what I can do. So hopefully again, I can help the team.”

Gaucher said he worked on the cliché, of getting bigger and stronger over the summer. But he also knew he would get fourth-line minutes if he hit the big club, so he also focused on moving his feet more in the offensive zone, being physical, and being a presence around the net.

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“Big, strong guy,” Tocchet said of the 6-foot-3, 185-pound centerman he praised during training camp. “If he can really lock down that middle, be that big right-shot centerman, like we always talk about [that’ll be good]. He’s got to continue to move his feet and stuff like that, hold on to pucks.”

The one plus for Gaucher this year is that the systems played in Lehigh Valley and Philly are 80% the same. A decision made by Tocchet — who said he does want to give Phantoms coach John Snowden the ability to grow his skills as a bench boss — this was not the case during the previous regimes.

Tocchet acknowledged that playing different systems in the NHL and the minors can be hard for a player. It is a major shift for someone like Gaucher who plays center, a critical role for Tocchet’s box-and-one defensive-zone structure.

“I think it helps a lot,” said Gaucher, who will be a restricted free agent on July 1. “I don’t have to worry about it as much, maybe, coming in and [there’s] a new system. So just having the D-zone coverage in Lehigh kind of the same up here, it helps me be more focused on my game and not just think about systems.”

Tocchet did confirm that Dan Vladař will start on Saturday. The expectation is Aleksei Kolosov will make his season debut on Sunday. ... With Andrae sent down, defenseman Egor Zamula will return to the lineup alongside Juulsen. .. Forward Nikita Grebkin, who was acquired in the deal that sent Scott Laughton to the Maple Leafs, will play against his former club. When asked what the young Russian winger needs to be an everyday NHL player, Tocchet said consistency.