Esposito talked in his book how he never got credit in Chicago because of Hull. Then in Boston it was all because of Orr. Well, what is the common denominator of the 1972 series? Neither of those two played. So this leaves Esposito as "the" guy of that team. What a leader he was in that series, just amazing. He had incredible passion to win that series too, and all of them did, but there was almost something (in retrospect of course looking back) comforting about Esposito being there. He really took the bull by the horns. Espo gets some undeserved flack on here and I defend the guy a lot and point to the 1972 series as his moment to shine where he had no other superstar teammate "carrying" him like what happened in Boston supposedly.
Well, let's take a look here. The following year Espo - who scored 130 points - gets hurt in Game 2 of the opening round against the Rangers. He's out for the playoffs. Boston doesn't do a single thing that series. No Bruin had more than three points that series, not even Orr. Small sample fine, but that team just fell apart without Esposito, and why not? How many teams are better when a 130 point guy is out? 1974 Cup final is a time Esposito didn't have a good series and the Bruins lost that series. Is that a coincidence? I don't think so.
But to answer your question, I don't know if he ever played better considering the height of the stakes. He had tons of good postseasons and was instrumental in 27 and 24 point playoff runs to the Cup. But in those games he wasn't playing for hockey superiority in a foreign country either. It would have been so easy to quit in Moscow, in fact we all know many players did literally do this and go home. But Espo didn't and he is the reason they won as far as I am concerned. I don't know if he played better. 13 points in 8 games is obviously something he achieved a ton of times in his career, even in the playoffs, but were the stakes as high?