Philadelphia Flyers’ forward Sean Couturier out day-to-day with upper-body injury

The Philadelphia Flyers have announced that center Sean Couturier has suffered an upper-body injury and is out day-to-day. He will miss the next two games on the schedule. The Flyers have begun a four-game road trip and are set to play the Buffalo Sabres tonight. Couturier did not travel with the team and will not be available to play in the Flyers’ game versus the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday.

Couturier has had an unimpressive season for the Flyers, with 11 goals and 36 points in 70 games. He ranks seventh on the team in scoring on a club that already struggles in that category. The Flyers are ranked 24th in the NHL with 2.87 goals per game and were counting on the veteran center to be a big part of the offensive solution this year.

Head coach John Tortorella was also counting on him to carry the load offensively, which has led to some friction between player and coach in recent weeks. Couturier is in the second year of an eight-year contract which pays him $7.75 million annually. This makes it two straight season with him not playing up to the level of his expectations, given his hefty salary.

However, even as Couturier’s offensive numbers leave much to be desired, he is still an effective defensive player. He played over 100 minutes with each of three different sets of linemates this year, and had solid numbers with all of them. Alongside Travis Konecny and Tyson Foerster, they put up a 61.2% xGoals. He also had a 57.5% and 53.8% with the other two sets of linemates, respectively.

Couturier was originally an eighth overall selection of the Flyers in the 2011 NHL Draft and has played his entire career in Philadelphia. He’s scored 191 goals and 496 points over 791 games in his NHL career thus far. He has six years remaining on his contract which will end in 2030, when he is 37 years old.