The most important thing is not even the Leifs game last night. It's Sean Coutourier getting scratched.

No, it's not.

Because that preempts the Leifs game.

My name's John Toterella. Don't ask questions about the very notable thing that I did. The Flyers... My first game back from suspension.

The Flyers scratch Couturier 34 days after being named captain.

He hasn't scored in a while. His offensive production is awful. But someone posted his underlying numbers, like his offensive impacts and defensive impacts. He's still a very good player.

Well, and he also is coming off of an injury. Yes. The fact that he came back to the NHL after not playing for two years because of an injury.

It was multiple back surgeries that he had over the course of the last two seasons. He played a little in the '21, '20... Or he missed the entire... No, yeah. He played a little in the '22, '23 season. No, that would have been last year. He missed all of last year, a little bit in the year before.

'21, '22.

I think you're lucky. My years are mixed.

Yeah, it was like two games, though, wasn't it?

'24, yeah. But it's basically two full years because of back surgeries.

He has an opportunity to do something I think I'm quite confident no NHL player has ever done, which is be named an NHL captain, be healthy, scratched, and win the master in front of me in that order in the same season. Oh, yeah. You know that's going to happen, right?

Yeah. I think there's some other contenders, but I think he's the front runner right now.

He should be. He's got to be nominated.

Everybody's nominated.

Because if you look at Patcheretti, I feel like there's a very similar case. But I don't know if we need to run down the front runners for the Bill Masterson Award.

Whose struggle was the hardest?

It's a ridiculous debate to have.

I'm not going to have it. We got to I'm not going to have it.

The old Greg Wyshinsky thing. What's that? Whenever everyone's going through what they did to deserve the trophy, he does an impression of Bill Masterton, and he goes, Yeah, I died.

Is that what Greg does?

He used to do it on Marek versus Wyshinski.

Yeah, I'm just going to say it is- It was Thatterpuck, too.

I think it was- This is the second straight show we've brought up Bill Masterton. That's right, because he was- His jersey is retired in Dallas.

Yes. That's it. It's my guy. He knows. Jesse knows. He does know. First North Star ever to be retired. Phil Masterton. Yes. No. So this is 34 days after Cutreo was named captain. Now, it's really important, I think, for context here. If you're not following every Philadelphia Flyers' outlet from the entire year because you're not a Flyers fan, it's important to note that torts was emphatic before the start of this year. There would be no captain.

Well, Adam, not every flyer's outlet. All but one, because one cannot get their questions answered.

Which one's that?

I think his name's Anthony San Filippo?

Is that the guy from the Kevin Hayes thing earlier this year?

From the Kevin Hayes story?

Oh, and torts was like, I'm not answering your question.

Yeah, but it was the first question yesterday. He goes, John, blah, blah, blah, and John goes, not answering your question. And then they Can we move on to the next reporter.

Do you have it, Jesse? Because I have the Torterella presser. Oh, you got Couturier already.

Yeah, I think it's more important. I think that's where you're going, right?

Yeah. I was going to do that, and then I was going to send you Rocky Thompson's press conference. But let's do that first. Let's do Couturier.

Yeah. Here's Sean Couturier, pregame after the morning skate being asked about being scratched.

Talked yesterday how trying to foot off frustration is. Is this testing your frustration and patience?

Definitely. Like I said, I control what I can control. It is what it is. We move on. Have you spoken with Tata Raul about this yet or no? Somewhat, but it doesn't matter, honestly, what I think. Got to leave my ego aside, I guess. Hopefully, team finds a way to get a win here tonight, and I can get back into it soon.

You were the last guy off the ice. I know you're a pretty driven worker, but how much is this driving you even more?

Yeah, it's tough. I feel I've been putting the work in for a while. I've been struggling, trying to work on my game, so definitely frustrated. The way I've been treated around, I guess, lately. But this is what it is.

Has he given you any direction for what he needs to see from you or what you need to work on to make make sure you're in the lineup and getting a lot more minutes than you have been?

Not really. I've gotten the same answer as you guys. Just need to see more. I'm still looking to find out what that is, but I'm trying every game. It's not like I'm just sitting around or doing nothing, I think. Like I said yesterday, I felt last couple of games with the limited ice time or opportunities I've been getting, been doing all right. But I guess I guess we're going with the best lineup available tonight to get a win. So it is what it is.

And Adam, we keep bringing up coaches being mean, like the Nashville Predators. But gosh, darn it, they win. They keep winning. So coaches need to be more mean.

It couldn't be because... So here's what's going to happen. First off, we're not going to talk about this yet because we need to hear what Rocky Thompson-Well, with that clip in there, what two things The things he said that were really important were that he said he doesn't like how he's been treated lately, which is a big thing to say to the media, and he doesn't know what he can do to get back in the lineup.

He said, I have the same information as you guys, which is very telling.

Well, and this is why I want to get to Rocky, because his agent spoke to the athletic. So I think not Rocky, Keturie's agent did speak to the athletic. So we're going to get to that in a second. But first, Rocky Thompson is the assistant coach of the Philadelphia the flyers. Why is he taking a morning press conference in Philadelphia? Well, it just happened to be the time that Torrance was getting his cast off. It couldn't have been over his suspension. It had to be at that moment and that time that Rocky Thompson had to take the press conference, not Torrance. Couldn't wait till after to get a cast cut off. Had to be then. Had to be right then.

Torrance has the most fascinating relationship with the media. I know. And last night's press conference-Hold on, we're playing a clip.

Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Play the clip. Play the clip. And this is what he had to say about it. This is all that was said.

Remind me.

Rocky, with Sean Gautourier, he played a lot of hard minutes early in the season, like what he had been doing before his injuries. His roles diminished a little bit. How much do you think maybe that is watching his minutes, but also understanding it's performance-related as well?

Well, I think that that's more of a question for Torrance and how Torz manages his minutes. I can't get into the mind of our head coach that way. I think Coote's done a good job. He works extremely hard in practice, and he's trying to get himself better without a doubt.

How much this time of year-How about the... That's more of a torts question. And then torts, when he does show up, doesn't answer the question.

We'll play that, too. We're going to play that because I think it's important. But I want to say, here's what torts' boss said. I could tell you one thing with John Torterella. It doesn't matter who it is. That's what he's known for. He treats everybody the same way.

Yeah, that was Daniel. Gm. And then- Back in his guy.

And then here's what Couturier's agent said about it, because this is, I think, really key to this. Who is this agent? Let me just pull it up here. Okay. Sure. So- Pop quiz. Hold on. You go ahead and say... I've got to pull up the article because I got the wrong link here. Okay, sure.

One positive piece of feedback with John Torterella that's always been there is, he's tough, but you always know where you stand with him. Players who go to bat for Tortarelle and say, We always know where we stand with him. Does Sean Cauterier sound like he knew where he was?

Not in this case. No. No, Sean Cauterier sound confused, unsure of what he can do. He didn't really understand while he was in the position he was in. One thing I thought the athletic pointed out that was interesting about this scratching, it comes off of Saturday where he played the least amount of minutes he played all season, 11 minutes. Eleven, yeah. Yeah. And then he got demoted to the fourth line midway through the game when they came out for the second period He was bumped down to the fourth line after starting in the top six. But then in the third period, I believe when the goal was scored, he directly caused a goal with a four check, something that is hard working. It's something the fourth is supposed to do on the fourth line. When you lead to those goals, usually you should be rewarded with more playing time. I'm also confused as to... I get he hasn't been playing well for a long stretch of time. Clearly, the couple of weeks he's been playing, but it's just a little It's all confusing because he doesn't have answers himself.

Well, and here's what the agent said. Agent hasn't spoke to him. His name is Eric Loupian. He only has two contracts. He's got Shon's and he's got Gabriel Fortier from the Tampa Bay Lightning. And Couturier was at one point up until January 13th, as Jesse said, 20 minutes on ice a night, and then it's fallen since. Here's what the agent said. He was clueless about his ice time and why his ice time went down when he spoke to him Tuesday. And this is before the scratching, said, But he said, I'm just going to manage and maybe manage the minutes he wants me to play. If I'm playing 14 minutes, I'm going to play 14 minutes. Throughout last year, in the beginning of this year, in conversations with Sean, he always told me that Torterella had him as a pretty good relationship. As soon as we get through that character, he's a pretty funny guy, and the conversations with him are good, and he knows what the team wants. From my point of view, when I saw the news that Keturie was scratched, I'm like, I really hope the communication why and the reasons why are really clear.

I hope he's going to get an explanation soon because he's the captain and he's the leader of this team. That's why he wanted... He said, And he's had Philadelphia tattooed on his chest since he was drafted. That's why he wanted to sign there long term. I hope he's going to get that respect from Tortarella. He has not been spoken to directly about this. I'm sure he has now.

I'm trying to figure out what order to do this in. So in defense of Torterella's decision, right? Yeah. So I talked about his underlying numbers. And And what Jeff-They're bad.

No, they're good. Oh, the underlying numbers? Yeah. On the season. On the season, yeah. But since mid-January is the point of when he's struggling.

So this is the problem. So you go, Oh, why? It's pretty obvious. You look at his game log. And yes, this is just counting stats, but it matters. February 10th against the Seattle Kraken. That was Sean Couturier's last goal. He had a goal, and he was minus one that night. The next game, February 12th, against the Arizona Coyotes. He had an assist. Again, he was a minus one. The next night, or next game, minus two. Next game, minus three. Next game, minus one. Next game, minus one. Next game, minus two. Even though he had two assists, then he was even. Then he was minus two. Then he was minus one. Even, even, even, even, minus one. His last plus game. So his last goal was February 10th. His last plus game was a game where he had no goals, no assists against the Florida Panthers, February sixth. That was his last plus game. Plus. Dude, that's really, really tough. We gave Sean his flowers earlier in the season, and he deserved them. Torch might have a point.