After a productive regular season, Laughton was one of the Flyers top scorers in the playoffs.
Scott Laughton came off of a highly successful but injury marred season for the Philadelphia Flyers. Spending most of the season switching between the Flyers 3rd line center and playing the wing with Kevin Hayes, Laughton was on pace for the most productive season of his career.
It was nice to see the former first round pick make a Couturier like jump, where he was finally putting together the offensive side of his equation tying a career high in points.
When the hockey and the playoffs returned Laughton started out on fire, scoring 3 times and collecting two assists in the seeding round. Then this happened. Laughton would not score a point in the Montreal series, saves like that can make a player start thinking too much. Laughton would be paired with Hayes early in the series, and then with Derek Grant and Claude Giroux as the series progressed.
After looking locked in, Laughton struggled to find a way to make an impact as he was shuffled up and down lines. Things would not start off much better against the Islanders, as he had played himself off of the Kevin Hayes line, and then Laughton would find himself as a healthy scratch for game 2 of the series.
Laughton would return to game three, and spend the rest of the series being paired with players like JVR and Tyler Pitlick , as Alain Vigneault desperately looked for ways to ignite the offense. Despite his migrant status Laughton was able to produce, finally looking back in sync, scoring the overtime winner in game five and notching another goal on a partial breakaway in game six.
Laughton was a net positive for the team, despite his struggles in the middle of the playoff run. The coaching staff did him no favors in his allocation and assignments. In the end, Laughton provided strong penalty killing, solid play wherever he was placed.
His scoring was a pleasant surprise, even if it was frontloaded in the seeding round, as he finished second on the team in points, and scoring big goals against the Islanders. Laughton grades out as an A- as he out performed many of the Flyers’ more prominent forwards while looking as an after thought by the coaching staff.