Dave Isaac | NHL Writer

NEWARK — Sean Couturier did his homework several months ago.

He was part of Team Canada, as was New Jersey Devils goalie MacKenzie Blackwood, in the World Championships and saw how the netminder moved in shootout practice. Couturier had a wrinkle of his own Friday night because he was essentially playing one-handed.

So he made a one-handed move.

The center was the third Flyer to go in the shootout and reached his right hand around the left leg of Blackwood to score the only goal of the shootout and give the Flyers a 4-3 win.

“That’s probably one move I didn’t do on him (at Worlds),” Couturier said. “That probably caught him off guard.”

The fact that Couturier was even shooting was noteworthy because the left-handed center seemed to have trouble with his left hand or wrist all night. Couturier is the top faceoff man in the NHL and he only took three, only when linemate Travis Konecny, who hasn’t played center since junior hockey, got kicked out of the draw first.

Whenever the injury happened, it was before Friday night’s win over the Devils. It’s also not enough to keep him out of the lineup. Frankly, the Flyers can’t afford to lose him.

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“I’m not feeling 100 percent but it’s part of a season. It’s a long season. You gotta battle through injuries,” Couturier said. “I’m just trying to do what I can to help the team win.”

“It’s a challenging test for us at this time,” Flyers coach Alain Vigneault added. “With him not being able to take faceoffs, with Scotty Laughton being out (after having surgery on his right index finger this week), with Nolan Patrick not being here (due to migraine disorder), our middle situation right now is a little bit more challenging. TK took some faceoffs. I thought he did a fairly good job. (German Rubtsov, in his NHL debut) came in and won a couple big draws. Just have to find a way and that’s what we’re trying to do as a team.”

That doesn’t leave many other options. The team doesn’t think that 2017 first-round pick Morgan Frost is ready yet, that there are “big swings in his performance right now” is how Chuck Fletcher put it Thursday.

Couturier only took five faceoffs Tuesday against the Pittsburgh Penguins, so presumably he’s been dealing with the injury at least since that game.

It seemed obvious that he was not himself Friday because of his lack of faceoffs and he struggled a bit with the puck on his stick. It didn’t keep him from scoring in regulation. He wound up and fired a slapshot from the point that went off Blackwood, off a Devils defenseman and into the net in the second period.

Using a slapshot, while it probably wasn’t painless, demands less flexibility on the low hand (in this case Couturier’s left) than shooting a wrist shot or even making a crisp pass. Typically Couturier is an excellent passer but seemed to struggle with it Friday night. He also had only three shot attempts all night outside of the shootout move that Peter Forsberg made famous.

“It’s day-to-day,” Couturier said when asked if there was a timeline for him taking faceoffs again. “It’s something you just don’t want to aggravate and injure the pain for a long period of time. Just cautious being day-to-day and it should be fine.”

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Dave Isaac joined the Courier-Post in April 2012 after covering the Flyers for three seasons elsewhere. Contact him on Twitter @davegisaac or by email at disaac@gannett.com.