There was nothing wrong with the mental side of his game except that he only shows up a few times a year. He has no trouble turning it up for International Tournaments. If he wanted to play for a contender he should have played well the whole season and there might have been interest in him.
There clearly was everything wrong with the mental side of his game as has been well established by MSL this season and with the addition of a mental performance coach, Jean Francois Menard who has worked extensively with Armia this season.
Armia is an very good hockey player who has struggled mightily with the mental side of the game.
Playing in International tournaments that are Mickey Mouse level relative to the NHL is a ridiculous comparison and only goes to show how much better he is when he is not overwhelmed by anxiety and expectations to earn his contract. He does not choose to not play well, he just really struggles to focus retain confidence when things go poorly in the NHL where the expectations and scrutiny are orders of magnitude more intense, especially in Montreal
I get it when people are frustrated with a player but this is just another example of mob behaviour where fans typically vilify players who do not meet their expectations and resort to tribal marginalization of the offending player where they will twist themselves into a cynical pretzel in order to find any way to blame the player for anything that is wrong with their favourite team.
The games this year don't count for the 40 games. You are correct it is 40 games total next year and it doesn't matter what team Allen is playing for during the season. Another condition is the team Allen is on needs to make the playoffs for the pick to turn into a 2nd.
Does it explicitly say that this year's games don't count or is that an assumption? If so, thank you for clearing that up.