The Lindros Saga - Eric Lindros, hockey player for the New york Rangers

Hockey Digest, Dec, 2001 by John Kreiser

We present an objective look at Lindros' checkered past, muddled present, and uncertain future

NINE YEARS AFTER THEY fought the New York Rangers to the bitter end for the rights to Eric Lindros, the Philadelphia Flyers couldn't wait to send him to the Big Apple. And even after all that time, the Rangers were still happy to get him.

But should they have been? Or did Flyers GM Bob Clarke play Glen Sather, his Rangers counterpart, for a sucker by getting three players--a scoring forward, a useful defenseman, and a potential 50-goal scorer--for a player who's had six concussions and carries enough off-ice baggage to fill an 18-wheeler?

There is no immediate answer. Lindros began the season not having played an NHL game since May 2000, when a smashing-but-legal center-ice hit from New Jersey Devils defenseman Scott Stevens early in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals left him lying on the ice with his sixth concussion in a span of 27 months. The Rangers brass are painfully aware that another such hit could send Lindros to the sidelines for good--the same thing that happened to his younger brother Brett--leaving them with nothing to show from the trade.

But for Sather, whose team has missed the playoffs four years running, the risk was well worth the potential reward.

"I'm very comfortable with what we did," says Sather, the architect of the Edmonton Oilers' dynasty in the `80s. "You can be a lion maybe once in your life. If you don't make this deal, you're a mouse forever."

Lindros didn't come cheap. The Rangers forked over left wing Jan Hlavac, a 28-goal scorer last season; defenseman Kim Johnsson; and 20-year-old right wing Pavel Brendl, the fourth overall pick in the 1999 draft, plus a third-round pick in the 2003 draft. They also inked Lindros to a series of contracts that could be worth as much as $38 million over four years.

Lindros' goal now is to give the opposition the headaches.

"I look at this as something fresh," Lindros says of moving to New York. "I look at it as an opportunity to get Rangers hockey back on the map, get back to the playoffs, and cause some havoc."

Ironically, Lindros caused a lot of havoc the last time the Rangers were in the playoffs. That was 1997, when he played the best hockey of his career as the Flyers bounced the Blueshirts out of the Eastern Conference finals in five games. Lindros was everywhere, putting his stamp on the series in Game 4 when he shrugged off a check from his idol, Mark Messier, to score the clinching goal.

But the Stanley Cup victory that Flyers fans had anticipated ever since they obtained him in 1992 didn't materialize. Even though he wound up as the leading scorer in the 1997 playoffs, Lindros was a non-factor as the Flyers were swept by the Detroit Red Wings in the Finals. A year later, he was again neutralized, this time by the Buffalo Sabres, who ousted the Flyers in the first round. He missed the Flyers' 1999 first-round loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs due to a collapsed lung sustained in a late-season game against the Nashville Predators, then missed much of 1999-2000 due to the concussions.

Healthwise, Lindros was cleared to return to the ice last November. By then, however, he was a man without a team. The 6'5", 243-pound center, a restricted free agent after the 1999-2000 season ended, opted not to sign the $8.5 million qualifying offer tendered by the Flyers. But the team retained his rights--meaning that Lindros was stuck.

By that time, Lindros and the Flyers were irreparably split--Lindros and Clarke didn't speak for weeks during the 1999-2000 season. Clarke, one of Lindros' childhood heroes, accused the 1995 MVP's parents, Carl and Bonnie Lindros, of constantly meddling with the team. The breaking point came when Lindros ripped the team's medical staff for failing to diagnose his second concussion of the season on March 4, 2000. Clarke, who had given Lindros the captain's "C" at the tender age of 21 and was a key mover in naming him captain of the 1998 Canadian Olympic team, took away the captaincy. Lindros was effectively ostracized from the team until he returned for Games 6 and 7 against the Devils.

After being cleared to play a month into the 2000-01 campaign, Lindros said he would only play for Toronto, his hometown team. The Leafs and Flyers danced a pas de deux for months, filling reams of newsprint and acres of cyberspace with speculation about a trade only to find themselves unable to complete a deal. When it finally became apparent that there would be no deal with Toronto, Lindros widened his horizons, and Sather, who had long coveted him, finally worked out a deal with Clarke.

The trade does have some safeguards for the Rangers. If Lindros goes down with a concussion before the 50-game mark of the regular season and doesn't come back within 12 months, the Rangers get their third-rounder back, plus a No. 1 pick from the Flyers. The last three years of Lindros' contract. at about $9.5 million per season, aren't guaranteed, either--years two and three are at the club's option, and the fourth is a mutual option year.