PHILADELPHIA – Sixteen months after his final divorce from this town finally went through, Eric Lindros came back to town with 14 points in 27 games.
The boos for him seemed perfunctory. The new girl on his arm, at 12-12-4, registers only a “five”. Meanwhile, the guys the Flyers have married came in 2-5-4-1 in their last 12 games.
ESPN was here for the size of the markets, more than the magnitude of the contest. The venom seemed gone, between rivals trying to find their way, the motives of two longtime rivals who made a trade out of convenience having become as pure as the 10 inches of driven snow outside.
Then, late in the second period, Lindros took a drop pass from Bobby Holik, and fired the devastating half-slapper the Flyers wanted on their side for 15 years past Roman Cechmanek to create a 2-2 tie. Now, the boos were from the heart, like Lindros’ stick thrust in the air, a decade after the presumed player of the next generation was brought here in the biggest trade in hockey history.
The future has always been, will always be, fickle as a fan. In 1992, the Flyers were three years removed from their last playoff spot and losses in four finals to Wayne Gretzky, Guy Lafleur, Bryan Trottier and Mike Bossy past their last Stanley Cup. They wanted to have the best player on their side the next time.
So they went after the most coveted prospect since Mario Lemieux, trading a prospect named Peter Forsberg among six players, two No. 1 draft choices, $15 million to Quebec, then successfully fought the Rangers and the double-dealing Nordiques in arbitration.
By 1995, the Flyers were a playoff team again and by 1997 a Cup finalist, but multiple concussions and other injuries left them too many springs either minus Lindros or playing with nothing but a shell of him.
General manager Bob Clarke, souring on Lindros’ perceived failure to take responsibility for himself and his team, began to snipe publicly. When the star criticized the team doctors after failing to report post-concussion symptoms and his teammates seemed relieved to go on a semifinals run without him, it was over. Lindros refused a contract offer the Flyers made in the worst of faith, wanting only to save the rights to trade him.
The Rangers were the only team that chose to afford the uncertainty over his health, the baggage of individualism he carried since his parents began at age 15 fighting for his rights to play where they chose. They negotiated with little to trade, only with money to burn and the knowledge the Flyers were boxed.
Nine years later, he was worth three young players (Jan Hlavac, Kim Johnsson and Pavel Brendl) that a Ranger franchise starving for youth could easily afford to give up.
Hlavac has been subsequently moved for a fourth-liner, Donald Brashear. Brendl, once a fourth-overall pick, has two goals and was a healthy scratch last night. Johnsson gave the Flyers a wheel at the blueline for half a season, then ran out of gas in the second half, like the team, which lost in the first round and got another coach fired.
Lindros’ fast start last season in New York was waylaid by another concussion, albeit a mild one, which, combined with more orthopedic setbacks, effectively ruined the second half of a fifth consecutive Ranger non-playoff season. After a catatonic start this season, a benching from new coach Bryan Trottier, and some recently renewed vigor alongside fourth-line linemates, Lindros became a left wing last night with Mark Messier and Radek Dvorak, then a right wing with the returning Bobby Holik and Matthew Barnaby.
Instantly, there was chemistry on the ice, acidity in the stands. Maybe, finally begun is a season that will declare Lindros’ second trade a winner, unlike the first.
