Philadelphia Flyers: Loss of Sean Couturier in Game 4 could be crushing

With the Philadelphia Flyers looking to tie up their series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, they may have to play Game 4 without Sean Couturier.

After a tough 5-1 loss in Game 3 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Philadelphia Flyers find themselves in a must-win situation heading into Wednesday’s game. When looking at the way the Penguins have been playing, the Flyers simply can’t afford to travel back to Pittsburgh on the verge of elimination by trailing 3-1 in the series since that crowd will make it quite the hostile environment.

Without question, Philadelphia is going to need every single player on their squad to step up in Game 4 to make sure this doesn’t happen, but unfortunately it looks like Dave Hakstol‘s team may face even more pressure without one of their key players in Sean Couturier. As Flyers Insider John Boruk indicated on Wednesday, the team is preparing to play Game 4 without their star center, although nothing has been made official at the moment.

The frustration was clear right away on Couturier’s end when he suffered an injury during Tuesday’s practice since the Philadelphia star wants to be part of the action more than anything on Wednesday night, especially when looking at everything on the line. Also, keep in mind that Couturier was one of the main reasons why the Flyers were able to come through the way they did in Game 2 of the series after finishing with one goal and two assists during the impressive 5-1 win.

Hope seemed to be a bit lost for Philadelphia following that embarrassing 7-0 blowout loss against Pittsburgh to kick off the series, and while it’s easy to say they still have a fighting chance, playing without Couturier will make that a lot more difficult to accomplish. Even if some of Couturier’s teammates like Claude Giroux are capable of stepping up if needed, this is the last thing the Flyers wanting to be dealing with during the series.

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What makes this whole situation even more frustrating for Philadelphia to deal with is the injury didn’t even happen during a game, and instead took place when Couturier collided with teammate Radko Gudas. The Flyers didn’t put all of this effort into making the playoffs to be sent home early, so with or without Couturier on Wednesday, let’s hope Hakstol has his players ready for what should be another tough matchup against the defending champions.