The best relationship a head coach can have is with his captain. From there, the coach can get a pulse of the locker room and can use his captain as a buffer. If the two sides can work together, the rest of the players can follow.
As time went on, that did not appear to be the case between Sean Couturier and John Tortorella. The cracks began to form when Couturier was scratched not long after being named the captain. Scratching your new captain, for whatever reason, is not going to make you popular within the room. It is a business, and sometimes tough decisions have to be made, but it does not come without consequences.
Whether or not the players in the locker room began to separate themselves from Tortorella is something we won't know. It's hard to believe a team would collectively give up on a coach, but their play following his dismissal may not be a coincidence. Likewise, according to Danny Briere, issues with Tortorella began popping up behind the scenes following the trade deadline.
With all of that combined, it makes for a dangerous situation that could blow up at any time. And it did end up happening between Tortorella and Cam York after an in-game benching against Toronto. The incident itself wasn't the reason that Tortorella was fired. But it showed that the cracks were now becoming impossible to avoid.
Couturier, who isn't always willing to go into detail, did provide a look into his fractured relationship with Tortorella. And his answer was rather telling about where things stood between the two. That came after confirming that the two didn't have much of a relationship at all.
"I think if you look at the minutes and stuff, I think it tells you how I was kind of maybe being pushed aside, but that's what I mean," Couturier said in his exit interview. "It is what it is. Didn't agree with the way I was getting pushed aside. But just trying to not be a distraction and keep my mouth shut, put in the extra effort to try to get back to where I should be."
Couturier did take responsibility for himself and what he needed to do to help get himself back to where he needed to be. But it's rather telling that Couturier was that open about what he felt was going on. As the longest tenured athlete in Philadelphia, Couturier has deservedly earned plenty of respect for everything he has gone through.
So getting some kind of explanation on why things were going the way they were is the least that could've been done. But if a coach cannot even come to his captain and give him an honest answer, how can the rest of the team have faith that they are being led by the right coach?
"I think if you look at the way he wanted us to play, it was fast, speed, quick on pucks. It's maybe not fully my type of game. If you look at my career, I was never the fastest guy, but I still found a way to be first on the puck. I think that's maybe the reason. I don't know, honestly, it is what it is."
Couturier is right, speed never has been his strong suit. But that doesn't mean that he couldn't find ways to adapt or be used in ways that would highlight what he was best at. Scratching or reducing him to fourth-line minutes seemed more like an effort to eliminate him rather than giving other players opportunities.
With the Flyers' efforts to create a young core that can take them to the next level, treating their captain in this way is no way to build a sustainable culture. Couturier has given his all to this city and doesn't plan on leaving without a championship. And whoever the next coach is, getting on the same page will be the most important thing.
"I think as long as we're all in together, pushing in the same direction, together. That's the main goal is to win. We're all in this together."