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“He’s one of the best players to ever play,” Pacioretty said about Lafleur. “For myself, personally, to be expected to produce … I know he knows what I’m going through sometimes through the ups and downs when you feel like you can’t miss or when you feel like you’re never going to score again. That just comes with wearing this jersey.

“He was talking about how it doesn’t come easy,” Pacioretty added about his recent conversations with Lafleur. “And for him to say that … because you would think it did come easy for him. He was The Flower … he’d skate around with the nice hair and go down and take a nice slapshot. He made it look easy but, as he said, it wasn’t easy. There’s a lot of hard work and to hear that coming from him … it’s something so simple, but you would think his life was easy at the time and he’d just go out there and play his game and score goals. But it took a lot of dedication, a lot of hard work and ups and downs to accomplish what he accomplished.

“For him to say that, we can look in the mirror and say — especially right now when things definitely aren’t easy — the only way we’re going to get out of it is with each other and working hard for each other.”

Sounds like good advice.

scowan@postmedia.com

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