*Photo from Sports Illustrated*
Right after the Carolina Hurricanes extended Andrei Svechnikov for 8 years, the Philadelphia Flyers loved the contract. The Flyers and C Sean Couturier have agreed to an 8 year, $62 million extension, with a $7.75 million AAV, the same contract as the Hurricanes gave Svechnikov, according to a release by the Flyers.
The contract goes into effect next season, as he is still under his current contract for this season. When the contract goes into effect, the first 7 seasons have a no movement clause, while the last season has a modified no trade clause. Couturier has spent all 10 of his seasons in the NHL with the Flyers, and this contract pretty much ensures he'll retire a Flyer.
Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher said of the extension that "This guy's an elite hockey player. I don't know, maybe I like him more than some other people, but he is extremely good offensively, is extremely good defensively, is great on face-offs, he's a play driver. When we're down a goal we play him, when we're up a goal we play him. He's a rare talent. You just can't find these players."
In the shortened season last year, Couturier scored 18 goals and dished out 23 assists, with a -4 plus/minus in an ATOI of 19:20, playing in 45 regular season games, as the Flyers missed the playoffs. In 10 seasons, Couturier has 174 goals and 269 assists, with a +88/plus minus, playing in 692 regular season games. He has 10 goals and 12 assists in 39 career playoff games.
Couturier is a former first round pick of the Flyers, being chosen with the 8th overall pick in the 2011 NHL draft, debuting that same season, when he played 77 games in the regular season. He won the selke trophy in the 2019-2020 season as the NHL's best defensive forward. He led the league in faceoff winning percentage that season.
Couturier said of the extension that "You want to get paid, you want to earn what you're worth, but at the same time I want to win a Stanley Cup, a championship. I didn't want to break the bank or get all the money. I just wanted to secure myself for the next eight years, nine years. I just wanted to make it a fair deal for both of us and this is what we came down to. It's just another way to kind of try to help the team and really excited to be part of this group for the upcoming years."
The Flyers have experience a lot of roster turnover this offseason, bringing in Ryan Ellis, Rasmus Ristolainen, Cam Atkinson, Derick Brassard, Nate Thompson, Keith Yandle, and Martin Jones in an offseason of overhaul.
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