The Philadelphia Flyers drew an afternoon matinee against the Minnesota Wild on Saturday and it got off to a hot start for the Flyers and one player in particular — Sean Couturier. Just over a minute into the game, the Flyers’ captain pounced on a rebound off the pads of Filip Gustavsson and put it behind the Wild goaltender for the first goal of the game and — on a personal level — his 500th career NHL point.
Drafted eighth overall in 2011 by the Flyers, Couturier has spent his entire career with the Flyers — a career that has spanned over 13 seasons so far. Over that span, he has 194 goals and 504 points through 803 regular season games.
Couturier’s best offensive seasons came back in 2017-18 and 2018-19 when he had 31 and 33 goals, respectively, with 76 points each of those two seasons. He took over for Claude Giroux as the captain of the Flyers prior to the 2023-24 season before having his worst offensive season since 2016-17.
CAPTAIN COOTS GETS THE PARTY STARTED EARLY 🚨
— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) October 26, 2024
Career point No. 500 for Sean Couturier! pic.twitter.com/ffurphZJkZ
Organizationally, he’s amongst the top players in a number of categories — including fourth all-time in games played for the Flyers (803), 17th all-time in goals (194), 13th all-time in assists (310) and 16th all-time in points (504). He also sits just four points back of Rick Tocchet on the all-time points list and is tied with John LeClair on the all-time assists list.
He’s the 551st player all-time to reach the 500-point plateau and just the 74th active player to reach that mark. As for his draft colleagues, he’s the 11th player from the 2011 draft to hit 500 career points.
Couturier is under contract through 2030 with an average annual value (AAV) of $7.75 million — the highest paid player on the Flyers right now.
