Lots of players look better on a crap team or at the end of a season with no pressure and no one taking them seriously. When you're on a terrible team the coach has to play someone, 5-5, PP, PK, so a player with all kinds of warts can find themselves feeling pretty good. We forget the internal competition is Bobby the equipment guy and the management genuinely wants to lose. With expansion and tanking, people can make a whole career of that. Norm MacIver syndrome. The Flames had dozens of those guys in the 90s.
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