Flyers: Team Toyota Teammate Spotlight — Couturier Line

For the duration of the Philadelphia Flyers playoff run, Hockey Hot Stove will highlight the chemistry of the Flyers players that drive the team to success. The feature is powered by our new playoff sponsor, Team Toyota.

Over the course of the regular season stretch drive and the Stanley Cup playoffs to date, the Flyers have been able to regularly roll four forward lines. The veteran trio of Sean Couturier, Luke Glendening and Garnet Hathaway has been a tone-setting force for the team.

Individually and collectively, the Philly fourth line has made for a tremendous story.

Start with Couturier, the 33-year-old captain whom some in the fanbase called to be bought out despite having four seasons remaining on his contract. He’s played some of the most sustained physical hockey of his career, certainly since his two back surgeries that cost him a full season and two-thirds. After the Olympic break, Couturier embraced a different role on the team. It had a galvanizing effect, on and off the ice.

“No one is taking anything for granted,” Couturier said after practice onThursday.

“We had a long battle to get here to the playoffs. We’ve been taking this one day at a time since the Olympics. We’re not going to change that. There’s still a lot of work to do. The fourth win is the hardest one to get in a series.”

The revival of Glendening and Hathaway

Glendening, who turns 37 on April 28, appeared to be finished as an NHL player less than two months ago. He’s always been much more of a checking forward than a scorer. However, he seemed to be at the end of the line with the New Jersey Devils this season (52 games played, 0 goals, four assists, minus-11). The Devils, doomed to miss the playoffs, put the forward on waivers the day before the NHL Trade Deadline. The Flyers claimed him. Since then, Glendening has made the most of the opportunity. He and Couturier switch off which one lines up at center and which plays a wing. It’s worked out much better than anyone ever expected.

Meanwhile, the Flyers as a team benefited greatly this season from the acquisition of Trevor Zegras. General manager Daniel Briere was not particularly looking to trade center Ryan Poehling. The opportunity to acquire Zegras made it an easy decision to pull the trigger. It worked out very well overall, but Garnet Hathaway’s effectiveness seemed to suffer this season without Poehling. Rodrigo Abols played adequately before his season-ending injury. Hathaway, however, did not work as effectively with Abols and he did with the speedy Poehling.

Now 34, veteran agitator and checker Hathaway had a frustrating 2025-26 season. He even sat as a healthy scratch multiple times this season. Accustomed to being roughly a 10-goal, 20-point contributor on his team’s fourth line (and penalty kill), Hathaway had only one goal and three points for the entire regular season.

Defining moment to date

The line’s quintessential shift in the current series against Pittsburgh was not even one that shows up on a box score. In the second period of Game Two, the Penguins started to control the play in the second period. The Couturier line provided a momentum-changing shift that hemmed the Penguins in their defensive zone. On the very next shift, the 19-year-old Porter Martone scored to break a 0-0 deadlock.