The thing that’s hard in MTL regarding pressure and expectations is this; fans like their « Warrior types », balls to the wall players. Whether that type has talent (Saku) or not (Begin), fans loves those styles but hate the players that aren’t high energy (Ryder, Ribs types).
I don't know whether you are just carefully choosing your words and avoiding stating the obvious, but the issue fans had with Michael Ryder and Mike Ribeiro had nothing too with their "low energy."
The issue with both of those players was that they were completely one dimensional hockey players.
If the puck wasn't on their stick, they were completely useless. They brought no defensive play at all, of any kind and their physical game was non-existent.
When you see guys that skate harder and play harder when the team is on offence but they coast and do fly-bys on defense, that's going to rub the crowd the wrong way and both of those players - particularly Ribeiro - were shameless in that regard. Ribiero could lift a stick and steal a puck
in the offensive zone if it meant he would then have a scoring chance. But move him 200 feet down the ice to his own zone and there's no effort at all to get into pass lanes, tie guys up and win battles. He would just float around and wait til his team got possession.