{"id":104363,"date":"2021-03-22T12:35:54","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T16:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=104363"},"modified":"2021-03-22T12:35:54","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T16:35:54","slug":"flyers-sean-couturier-game-time-decision-with-lower-body-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/03\/22\/flyers-sean-couturier-game-time-decision-with-lower-body-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Flyers Sean Couturier Game-time Decision with Lower Body Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Philadelphia Flyers announced that centre <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/coutuse01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sean Couturier<\/a> could be sidelined with a lower-body injury.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Per AV: Sean Couturier (hip) received an MRI yesterday. He will take the ice for morning skate and warmups and a game-time decision will be made.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter talking with him, he feels he should be good for tonight.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/PHIvsNYI?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#PHIvsNYI<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/szFkrkm48a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/szFkrkm48a<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NHLFlyers\/status\/1374006037255225344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 22, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Sean Couturier Game-time Decision With Lower Body Injury<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sean Couturier was an unexpected late scratch for the Flyers-Islanders game on Saturday night, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/rafflmi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Raffl<\/a> taking his place in the lineup. Couturier had appeared fine during the Flyers\u2019 previous meeting with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/islanders\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Islanders<\/a> on Thursday, and even reportedly participated in the morning skate. Now, though, he will be a game-time decision with a lower-body injury for tonight&#8217;s game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite having missed a few weeks early in the season with a Costochondral separation, Couturier has played excellently for the Flyers. This season, he recorded six goals and 13 assists for 19 points to go along with just four penalty minutes. Couturier\u2019s possession numbers were 58.4 percent Corsi and a relative Corsi of 7.9.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Couturier has 162 goals and 259 assists for 421 career points in 665 career games. He was originally drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round, eighth overall in the 2011 NHL draft. Couturier has remained with the Flyers for the entirety of his 10-year NHL career.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What This Means for the Future<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Couturier\u2019s possible absence is a heavy blow for an already-struggling Flyers team. He\u2019s their permanent alternate captain, as well as the centre of their first line. The most likely candidates to fill Couturier&#8217;s spot on the first line are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/giroucl01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Claude Giroux<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/hayeske01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Hayes<\/a>, although <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/patrino01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nolan Patrick<\/a> could also potentially be given a shot. Regardless of who is chosen, it will be difficult to replicate the chemistry of the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Farabee-Couturier-van Riemsdyk line.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Flyers will also miss Couturier\u2019s skill on defence. He won the league\u2019s Selke Trophy for best defensive forward last season. Without Couturier in the lineup for Saturday\u2019s game against the Islanders, the Flyers looked noticeably shakier on the back end. They ended up allowing six goals, double the amount they let in on Thursday. The Flyers\u2019 defence has struggled all season, and Couturier\u2019s absence will only exacerbate the issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[pickup_prop id=&#8221;3584&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"qaBXxEicTsxgLYmdDtZb6w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1307821705\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'qaBXxEicTsxgLYmdDtZb6w',sig:'-G3Iy-5AmsRlfSxgh1vTMxFJL698LdKICkI6dK7IJZM=',w:'594px',h:'400px',items:'1307821705',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Philadelphia Flyers announced that centre Sean Couturier could be sidelined with a lower-body injury. Per AV: Sean Couturier (hip) received an MRI yesterday. He will take the ice for morning skate and warmups and a game-time decision will be made. \u201cAfter talking with him, he feels he should be good for tonight.\u201d #PHIvsNYI pic.twitter.com\/szFkrkm48a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3813,"featured_media":104434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,4547,6671,4548,16],"tags":[5738,955,5996,345],"class_list":["post-104363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-hockey","category-injuries","category-nhl","category-flyers","tag-hockey-news","tag-nhl-news","tag-philadelphia-flyers-news","tag-sean-couturier"],"modified_by":"William Grigsby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3813"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}