While I do think it’s just an innate part of their DNA that our big guns are milquetoast, butter-soft regular-season stat compilers utterly lacking a burning desire to win or an extra gear in games that matter…on top of that they’ve also got an all-timer case of the yips in the playoffs.
And I do think fucking Fred is largely responsible for that latter part. If just a couple of the laughers he let in at crucial moments had stayed out of the net and these guys had experienced some early playoff success, maybe things would be different even in spite of their deficiencies.