You can like Sean couturier. You can think he’s good. Whatever that’s fine. Truth is he’s not a “bad” player. But what he is, is a false prophet. This fanbase and this franchise has bet the farm on this guy being an irreplaceable franchise player since 2011. (Continued)
Like it or not he was the centerpiece of the Jeff Carter trade. Not Jake Voracek. His draft pick was the jewel. He was the guy we took to replace our leading scorer. He was the guy EVERYONE hung their hopes for this team on.
From snider to Holmgren to Hextall all the way down to joe average fan from fishtown. Coots was supposed to be our answer. The last two years has he turned into a “good player” in a vacuum? Yes absolutely. He’s added offense where before there was none.
But ask yourself this: when the flyers need a goal, when they need to make a play in the offensive zone, when it’s OT, do you as a fan REALLY turn to coots for that in your mind? Do you REALLY want coots our in 3v3 OT or the shootout?
For most of you that answer is a resounding No. and this is my point. Every one of you that is a Coots apologist refuses to acknowledge that you were duped. You were sold snake oil. You asked for a franchise player, a scorer and got Michal Handzus in disguise as a top 10 pick.
You deluded yourself into believing that because a guy is good defensively that he’s irreplaceable. You’ve deluded yourself into thinking that forwards who play defense are just as good as defensemen who play defense and BETTER than forwards who score. And for that I pity you
This idea that a 2 way game is the most valuable and rare thing to find in this world and shouldn’t be moved at any cost is just plain wrong. You’ve all become obsessed with the word SELKE like Selke = championships.
TLDR: this franchise and fanbase hitched its wagon to the wrong guy for he wrong reasons believing he was something that he’s not.
You can like Sean couturier! I’m not saying you can’t. Hell I loved Michal Handzus and Joel Otto. But nobody pinned their hopes for the team on those guys’ shoulders because we weren’t desperately starved for stars when we had Lindros Roenick primeau leclair Recchi Gagne etc
What flyers fans today lack is perspective. Coots is overrated and infallible and has excuses made for him because our fans have forgotten what an actual star player looks like.
the sad thing is it wasn’t even that long ago that we had some. The “ELITE 2 WAY SELKE CALIBER” fwd that you all think coots is was in this team and at his best from 2007-2011. His name was Mike Richards. And coots has never SNIFFED the level of play Richie brought in his prime
And I’m not gonna lie, I watched the 2011 world Jrs and kept hearing the name couturier and was really impressed watching him. When we got him in the draft I thought we killed it. “A consensus top 4 pick at 8??? What a robbery!”
But what we should’ve known and and what the team who’s job it is to do their homework on prospects should’ve known is that consensus high picks don’t just slide for no reason. Other teams knew something we didn’t. He didn’t slide because of Mono. He slid bc he just isn’t special
And thats the key: HE ISNT SPECIAL. He’s fine. Hes not bad. Hes a prototypical #2/#3 Center in the nhl. a Ryan O’Reilly that cant skate or assert himself physically essentially. It’s why I’m baffled by people flipping out whenever the idea of exploring a Coots trade is bright up
What are you clinging to? What do you think we’ll miss with him not here? What in now 8 seasons has he done for this team that’s been so irreplaceable? What has he (or anyone else on this team for that matter) ever done in the last 8 years that warrants him being critical?
The flyers suck today, not because of Sean couturier. But because of what players like him represent. This weird mentality that we need forwards that play D more than we need goal-scorers. It’s Hextallian thinking and it’s why our team sucks.
We have fans that think “he’s fine.” Or “he’s good enough” and not just about couturier. This goes for Raffl, Laughton, Bellemare once, read once, Simmonds, even Giroux and Voracek. This prevailing idea that we don’t need to upgrade were good enough...
“GOOD ENOUGH” DOESNT WIN CHAMPIONSHIPS.
Complacency is the mentality of the day. “Let’s just see what happens” let’s not fucking use our brains to make educated guesses on what probably will happen based on what history tells us has already happened by trotting out the same core for 8 years. “Let’s just wait and see”
And while we’re on the subject of guys being good enough:
Guys like Raffl coots Laughton etc that all you fucking apologists like to make excuses for, that you use cherry picked obscure ridiculous stats to back up your arguments with....
Guys like Raffl coots Laughton etc that all you fucking apologists like to make excuses for, that you use cherry picked obscure ridiculous stats to back up your arguments with....
If you have to dig so deep into the numbers to use somebody’s “expected goals for divided by Corsi @ 60 minutes at even strength on every 3rd Tuesday of the month” to make your case for how good somebody is, chances are they probably aren’t that good.
You know why nobody ever asks what Sidney Crosby’s “ev60CF%exGFy=mx+b” is? Because they don’t fucking have to. His tangible numbers jump off the page at you. And you go “wow this guys killing it and my eyes agree”
I don’t need a ridiculous advanced stat that measures something vague like “driving play in certain conditions as long as it’s 5v5” to convince me a player is good. Guess what if Tarasenko scores 50 goals & 0 at even strength you know what that makes him?
A 50 goal scorer
A 50 goal scorer
The whole point of this rant wasn’t to blame coots for our team sucking. It’s not his fault. I just want people to understand that he’s not good enough. And neither are most of the guys on this team. He’s one of the faces of this franchise and that’s a problem.
Imagine Nick Bonino being one of the 2 or 3 “faces of your franchise” and that’s basically coots. Your team is probably in the shitter if Nick Bonino is a key cog. Giroux, Provy, Ghost. Maybe (MAYBE) Sanheim. That’s about it. The rest meh. Couldn’t care less about them.
