Flyers captain Sean Couturier says he underwent sports hernia surgery

Sean Couturier revealed Thursday that he has undergone offseason surgery.

“I’m doing some rehab right now,” the Flyers captain said on the Nasty Knuckles Podcast hosted by former Flyers forward Riley Cote and former team equipment manager Derek “Nasty” Settlemyre.

“Had a little sports hernia surgery, lower abs. Feeling great now, so about to head back home this week and start the full training.”

After missing almost two seasons following multiple back surgeries, the forward had an up-and-down season. Couturier finished with 38 points (11 goals, 27 assists) in 74 games. But it was a season of two halves.

Couturier started with a bang. Skating in 31 of the first 33 games of the season — he missed two games in early November with a lower-body injury — he notched nine goals and 14 assists with a plus-minus of plus-5 while playing almost 20 minutes a night, No. 1 on the team among forwards.

But after the holiday break, his production stalled. In his final 43 games, he notched just two goals and 13 assists and was an un-Couturier-like minus-15.

“I don’t think it’s an excuse. I mean, my body was feeling better as the year went on,” Couturier, 31, said at his end-of-season news conference. “Earlier in the year, I was more banged up at times and got through it. So that’s not an excuse for my play. I just plain-and-simple [stunk] down the road.”

Amid that final stretch, he missed two games in mid-January with what Flyers general manager Danny Brière said was a “minor injury” and two games in April with an upper-body injury he suffered against the New York Islanders.

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“I feel my game itself never really came back after that, if you really look back at it,” Couturier said about the mid-January injury. “But I was just trying to grind through it, show up every night, and try to help the team win in any way I could. Obviously, wasn’t good enough. But, yeah, I guess I never really found that jump that I had maybe earlier in the year.”

Although sources inside the organization could not confirm to The Inquirer when Couturier suffered the sports hernia, there is a line of demarcation in Couturier’s game. It is similar to what occurred with Kevin Hayes during the 2020-21 season. The then-Flyers forward revealed in June 2021 that he underwent postseason surgery to repair a core muscle, also known as a sports hernia. The injury started to affect him midway through the season, and he finished with just 12 goals in 55 games — after scoring 23 in 69 games the previous season.

“It was tough to get going in games,” Hayes revealed afterward.

From the press box, it did seem as if there was a drop in speed and quickness to Couturier’s game as the season wore on — considering that at the beginning of the season, he was all over opponents as he brandished his Selke-winning style of play.

Although he was named captain on Valentine’s Day, Couturier also was a healthy scratch for two games in March. It was the first time in his 12-year career he watched from the press box. The benching caused a bit of a disconnect between the team’s leader and coach John Tortorella, including Couturier publicly questioning the move. It all led to speculation about Couturier’s future in Philly.

“It’s all good, as far as I know now,” Brière told The Inquirer at the NHL Scouting Combine. “They’ve had some talks. I think the relationship between the two is growing. It probably wasn’t ideal, and it probably shouldn’t have gone maybe as public as it did. But I think it’s fine now.

“Sean’s not going anywhere. Torts is not going anywhere. So they understand that, and they want the best for the team. So I have, honestly, no worries there with the relationship between the two of them. I expect Sean to come back and be the same player he was in the first half of last year and return to what we’re accustomed to seeing from him.”