Guy Lafleur made his return to the NHL in 1988-89 with the New York Rangers, after leaving the NHL during the 1984-85 season. I had been too young to know him as a member of the Montreal Canadiens, so this card should have seemed normal to me, but even still, he looks out of place here – the name, the uniform, the logo… just some kind of unholy trinity. He knew he was meant to be somewhere else. He even looks disinterested – look at his facial expression… “Yeah, I’ll take the warmup, but I’m not going to try… and I’m not going to like it.”
This is probably sacrilege to Montreal fans – but I thought his year with the Rangers looked even weirder than the two years with the hated cross-provincial rivals, the Quebec Nordiques.
I await your letters.