With no more painful sleep, Couturier can alleviate ‘the pain of the fans'

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When Sean Couturier started losing sleep, he knew his back troubles were more serious than daily aches from the NHL grind.

The Flyers are hopeful they won't be losing sleep this season over Couturier's sleep.

The first-line center played only 29 games last season as the Flyers stomached one of their worst years in franchise history. Couturier was knocked out of the lineup in December and then underwent season-ending surgery in February.

"Going back to December when it happened, I don’t know, I think it was just a little bit of a wear and tear," Couturier said at his end-of-the-season press conference in late April. "Three, four weeks prior to that, I had some back pains; everyone kind of has those in the year at some point. But these ones just wouldn't go away.

"At one point, it just got so painful that I couldn’t really sleep at night. That’s when I had to kind of step back and see if it would heal. It just wouldn’t go away, so I had to go the surgery road."

By the end of the Flyers' 25-46-11 season, Couturier was practicing and feeling good heading into his offseason of training. That became the sole objective for Couturier and the Flyers in February. He's an important player, arguably the club's most important, and the Flyers need every bit of him as they enter this significant transitional period.

Claude Giroux is gone and there's a new head coach. A healthy, back-in-form Couturier would go a long way to helping stabilize things. After an offseason in which the Flyers added around the margins and elicited criticism, health will be paramount to the team's goal of being more competitive.

"Up front, a healthy Sean Couturier makes a big difference," Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher said May 3. "It’s going to be very difficult to get a No. 1 center this summer. Sean is healthy, we believe he is, he’s 30 years old next year. I believe it’s his age-30 season. He’s a pretty good hockey player."

Last season, the Flyers did not have good health, highlighted by Couturier, top-pair defenseman Ryan Ellis and second-line center Kevin Hayes combining to play 81 games, together falling short of a full 82-game season.

"With Hayesy being hurt and then obviously Ellis and Coots wasn’t himself the whole year, it's unbelievable," Cam Atkinson said at his end-of-the-season press conference. "I've never been a part of something like that from start to finish."

Ellis played four games and Hayes 48. Twenty of Hayes' games were played while injured until March 5, when he returned healthy but with the thought of the playoffs long gone.

"The good news is Sean Couturier's doing great," Fletcher said June 29. "He’s doing all his summer training, feels very good. Same with Kevin Hayes."

More: Tortorella talks importance of Flyers' health, knows Ellis is 'huge' if healthy

Back in February, Fletcher said the Flyers didn't have concerns about Couturier's back issue lingering into this season or beyond. Couturier, a Selke Trophy winner fewer than two years ago, expressed the same confidence.

"That’s what they told me. I feel that way, I hope it. You never know in this business," he said with a smile. "It’s a tough sport out there and we can get hit, it can happen again, just don’t know. But I feel pretty confident that I’ll be back to 100 percent, so there's no extra worries I guess."

Over the last two seasons, the Flyers went 18-38-8 in games without Couturier in the lineup. They went 32-31-11 when he was in the lineup.

In 2022-23, with a fresh eight-year contract, Couturier will lead the Flyers' charge of trying to forget last season and start anew.

"Tough year, the injuries, but I think it’s more than that. It’s not just injuries," Couturier said. "We still have to find a way, we can’t just put it all on the injury excuse. We've got to find a way to be more responsible, take some ownership in our mistakes and learn from them. It seemed that at times we didn’t have any growth in our game. It was just a tough year.

"No one in that locker room was happy with the way things went. Everyone was really disappointed. We feel the pain of the fans. They’re proud of their team, of the Flyers. It’s on us to be better and we’ll be better."

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