It's a dumb narrative. But Aqua is right. In baseball you'd always see Charlie and Girardi and Thomson talk about just wanting to give someone a "blow," even when they aren't slumping (but when they are slumping they still don't spin it as punitive). And when Torts actually benches someone for something specific he usually isn't shy about it (or at least acknowledges a specific reason existed that he doesn't care to discuss).
The team's second-best paid forward after Couts is already a healthy scratch all the time!
Probably true about riding him too hard though I doubt Couturier would have liked it if he'd only played 16 minutes a night (and doesn't like how little he's playing now). Never mind the motivation, he's been playing poorly enough that for one night maybe the line-up actually was better without him. I also think it's totally okay to bench the captain - everyone is equal, letter or not. It's just funny that he only just got made captain, and during a stretch where he already wasn't playing well.
The center is sixth on the Flyers with 36 points (11 goals, 25 assists) in 64 games. However, he has one goal in his past 27 games, and his ice time has dipped to 14:10 per game in his past 10, down from 19:25 in his first 54.
