The Flyers' first game of the preseason was one to forget.

Preseason games typically aren't all that memorable for many veteran NHLers. But for Sean Couturier, the Philadelphia Flyers' preseason opener was a game he'll remember for a very long time.

Couturier suited up with his teammates for the first time since 2021. After missing nearly two years of action due to a pair of back surgeries, the Flyers' No. 1 center couldn't get back in the lineup soon enough.

"I've been waiting for this moment for a while. All summer I've been thinking about it. And now I'm here," Couturier told the media Monday morning. "I'm just excited to get the warmups going and the first shift out of the way and just play hockey. I think that's what I've missed most."

Couturier's return was a welcome sight, but his club's performance was one to forget. The Flyers fell to their division rival New Jersey Devils in a 6-0 rout in Newark. Devils goalies Vitek Vanecek and Erik Kallgren combined for the 21-save shutout.

The Flyers' showing was as ugly as the score suggests. They were outshot 34-21 and lost 58.9% of their faceoffs in total, but their abysmal opening period was particularly rough. They were outshot 13-5, lost 66% of their faceoffs and allowed a quartet of goals. In fact, each of those goals were scored less than six minutes into the tilt.

Ondrej Palat opened the scoring at the 1:08 mark off a feed from Jesper Bratt, who darted past Nick Seeler down the wing to create the rush. Two minutes later, Erik Haula lifted a puck past Cal Petersen after he was left completed uncovered at the back door. Add quick strikes from Tyce Thompson and Alexander Holtz and the Flyers found themselves down four goals 5:50 into the contest.

Things didn't get much better as the game progressed. Timo Meier extended the Devils lead early in the second period. In the final frame, Michael McLeod beat Felix Sandstrom on the breakaway to put the final nail in the coffin. Sandstrom manned the crease for the third period and turned aside nine of 10 shots against.

Petersen, meanwhile, was simply disastrous in his Flyers debut. The 28-year-old netminder acquired from the Los Angeles Kings in the Ivan Provorov trade allowed a ghastly five goals on 24 shots. The team playing in front of him didn't do him many favors, but Petersen did not look like a player worthy of a full-time backup role.

"They came at us hard. They had a lot of experienced guys in there, put us on our heels a little bit," Petersen told the media after the game.

"That's what preseason's for. You want to make mistakes here, you want to get up to speed. I think we're just gonna take the things that we could learn from out of this game. Obviously not the result that we wanted, but it's more about the process, it's more about the things that we can do better for next game and keep building."

After the game, Lehigh Valley Phantoms head coach Ian Laperriere, who was behind the bench, hinted the team may have been fatigued after a long several days of John Tortorella's infamously challenging training camp.

Couturier shared the same belief.

"I think all game you could tell that we weren't the first on pucks and we weren't as physical as we should've been in battles. We weren't winning many battles, so we were chasing the puck all game. Just gotta recover a little better here in the next couple days and find our legs and we'll be better as camp goes," Couturier told the media after the game.

"I think we can only get better from tonight's performance."

The Flyers will have an opportunity to bounce back Wednesday night against the New York Islanders at UBS Arena. Perhaps then veteran forward Cam Atkinson will be well enough to make his own return to the lineup.

Like Couturier, Atkinson missed the the entire 2022-23 season. He was expected to play Monday night in Newark, but did not take the ice for warmups and was replaced in the lineup by Wade Allison. According to Flyers general manager Danny Briere in a statement, Atkinson was out due to lower-body soreness unrelated to the neck injury that kept him out of commission for the 2022-23 campaign and didn't want to take an unnecessary risk by playing him.