“Candidates for election as Honoured Members in the player category shall be chosen on the basis of their playing ability, sportsmanship, character and their contribution to their team or teams and to the game of hockey in general”
The next person I am presenting for consideration for election to the Hockey Hall of Fame is one of the most controversial players in the 90s. Eric Lindros, who was THE most hyped up player of the 90s, dubbing him “The Next One”. Years in advance of his draft year sought to angle themselves to be able to draft him although many of those teams didn’t account for the way he and his parents handled himself and his business affairs.
When you look at Lindros’ career, you have to start from his time before major junior. He was so big and skilled for his age that Ontario Hockey League teams were salivating at the chance to draft him, and when the time came it was the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds that had the number 1 pick in the OHL draft. At the time, however, there were some moving pieces going on behind the scenes. Phil Esposito owned the Greyhounds and was secretly looking to sell the team. He knew if the team drafted Lindros, the value of his team would skyrocket. The major problem with this, however, was Lindros did not want to go to the Sault.
These issues caused havoc in the OHL. At that time, there was a rule in place that OHL teams could not trade their first round picks, even after they are selected. This means if Lindros was selected by the Greyhounds, he would be stuck there. Despite his camp telling Esposito that he would not report to Sault Ste. Marie, Esposito drafted him anyway. To fight back, Lindros explored other options than the OHL and ended up playing a year North American Hockey League, one the United States’ top junior leagues, with the Detroit Compuware Ambassadors. In 14 games with that club, he compiled 23 goals and 52 points.
The next year, the OHL realized that their league would be more profitable with Lindros in it than without and thus changed the rule that didn’t allow him to be traded resulting in Lindros being traded to the Oshawa Generals for 3 players, 3 draft picks, and $80,000. In his first season with the Generals, Lindros averaged 2 points a game while leading the team to winning the OHL Championship in 1990, and then winning the Memorial Cup. In the 1990-91 season, Lindros was the top scorer in the OHL with 149 points, was the MVP of the OHL, the CHL player of the year, and won the CHL Top Draft Prospect. Overall in his time in the OHL, Lindros had 180 goals and 380 points in only 157 games played. His number, 88, is retired by the Oshawa Generals.
Lindros' Hockey Card from the Oshawa Generals
As in the OHL Priority Draft, in 1991 NHL teams were positioning themselves to be able to draft Mr. Lindros. In the end, the Quebec Nordiques had the first chance to select Lindros, having the worst record from the year prior. However as with the OHL’s Greyhounds, Lindros and his parents did not want him to go to Quebec. Lindros was not a fan of the how far away the club was from his hometown in Toronto, the lack of marketing potential in Quebec, and the fact that he would have to learn French. The owner of the Nordiques, Marcel Aubut, refused to trade Lindros, publicly saying that if he wants a career in the NHL, it would have to be with Quebec.
So Lindros again went to find other options for where to play. He returned to the Oshawa General to start the year, however he would also play for numerous versions of Team Canada, included the Silver Medal 1992 Olympic Team, and the Canada Cup team.
Prior to the start of the 1992-93 season, Lindros’ pending NHL situation became a topic again. Eventually, Marcel Aubut relented and agreed to trade Lindros after it was rumoured that NHL President Gil Stein intervened and Lindros threatened the league with a lawsuit, citing restraint of trade. As did the OHL, the NHL had decided that the league was better with Lindros in it than not. The circus did not end with that hurdle, however, as once the Nordiques agreed to trade him, they traded him to not one but TWO teams. Both the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers believed they had made a deal for Lindros. The Rangers had agreed to trade Doug Weight, Tony Amonte, Alexei Kovalev, John Vanbiesbrouck, 3 first round picks, and $12 million for Lindros, while the Flyers deal included Peter Forsberg, Ron Hextall, Chris Simon, Mike Ricci, Kerry Huffman, Steve Duchesne, a first round pick and $15 million for Lindros. Eventually, the matter had to go to an arbitrator who ruled that the Flyers deal prevailed and had won the rights for Lindros. This situation also is why the NHL has the “Trade Call” prior to any deals being announced today, so there is no confusion in the future.
Lindros would end up playing for the Flyers for eight seasons during which he was one of the most dominant players in the history of the game. He scored more than 40 goals in each of his first two seasons with the Flyers and he took over the captaincy in 1994. In the 1995 shortened season, he won the Hart Trophy as MVP of the NHL while scoring 29 goals and 70 points in only 46 games. In 1997, the Flyers, led by Lindros, went all the way to the Stanley Cup Final before being unceremoniously dumped by the Detroit Red Wings in 4 games.
Lindros falling in front of Marty Brodeur in the 1995 NHL Playoffs
That Stanley Cup Final was when things started to go downhill for Lindros. He received his first of a series of concussions during the 1998 season that would knock him out of the lineup for 18 games and another concussion latedr that season sidelined him for another two games. The next year in 1999, with what was originally was diagnosed as a rib injury, Lindros’ roommate Keith Jones found Lindros in in the bathtub looking quite pale. The trainers were told to send Lindros on a plane back to Philadelphia, however Jones insisted on taking him to the hospital. It turnd out that Lindros had sufferd a collapsed lung due to internal bleeding. Had he gone on that flight, he likely would not have survived.
After that last incident, the straw the broke the camel’s back happened during the 1999-00 season. When Lindros suffered his second concussion of that season, he started to criticize the team’s trainers and medical staff for the way he had been handled. The Flyers’ GM, Bobby Clarke, proceeded to strip Lindros of his captaincy due to his remarks. Lindros could not play again that season until Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the New Jersey Devils. In Game 7 of that Finals, Scott Stevens laid out one of the most devastating hits in hockey history, effectively ending Lindros’ career as a Flyer.
That off-season Lindros became a restricted free agent when he refused to accept a two-way qualifying offer with the Flyers. Lindros would refuse to re-sign with the Flyers, demanding to be traded only to the Toronto Maple Leafs. When the Flyers refused to make that trade, he ended up sitting out the entire 2000-01 season. In the summer of 2001, once Lindros agreed to go somewhere other than Toronto, the Flyers ended traded him to the New York Rangers for Jan Hlavac, Kim Johnsson, Pavel Brendle, and a 3rd round draft choice (Stefan Ruzicka).
Lindros started off his time with the Rangers strong, scoring 37 goals and 73 points in 72 games that season. However the Rangers could not find success with their team. Lindros played two more years with the Rangers before finally signing with the Toronto Maple Leafs for one year after the lockout. Lindros had another injury riddled year with the Leafs and after the season signed another one year deal with the Dallas Stars before retiring in 2007.
Lindros’ situation is really where the subjectiveness of the Selection Committee comes into play. His actions off the ice can be seen in two different lights. In a negative light, he can be seen as a head case, always looking out for himself, had no respect for the way the game is run and managed. From what I’ve seen, this is how a lot of people view Lindros. He certainly rubbed many hockey people the wrong way throughout his career.
The other way of looking at is was Lindros was more of a pioneer as a hockey player. If you know the history of the NHLPA and the plight of the players, you know that players were not very educated and really relied on the owners to handle the business side of the game. During those days, if a player cited “limited marketing potential” as a reason he did not want to go somewhere, the NHL would have scoffed at him, letting him sit out just out of spite. The player would have had no other place to play hockey and besides, originally all marketing and promotions of players went straight through the team. This was the beginning of an era when NHL players could market themselves, and Lindros was one of the first real superstars to do it. Thus as with any other sort of change, it was met with resistance. Today, however, many of the things that Lindros was chastised for are now more common place in the current game.
Lindros talking with Heidi Androl at the 2012 Winter Classic
To go along with this, the questioning of the medical staff are questions that has truly reared its head in today’s game. How many conversations about how the NHL has handled concussions and other medical issues have you heard within the last 10 years? There has clearly been a lack of knowledge of information in which we are only just now demanding that we know how to deal with it. Imagine if Lindros were playing in today’s NHL, without the clutching and grabbing, with the newer concussion protocols. One would wonder if his career would have petered out the way it did.
Going back to the way he played is the greatest debate of them all. It was only a short period of time that he was able to dominate the league the way he felt he could until the concussion problems took over. This is not unlike Bobby Orr with his knee issues. The question regarding Lindros is does diminished the end of his career overshadow the prime of it? When he was in his prime, Lindros was at times arguably the best player in the world. It was so widely regarded that the Hockey News named him the 54th best player of all time in 1997 at the age of 25. To put that in comparison, Jaromir Jagr was the 37th ranked player in that same list at the age of 26. As well he is the 4th fastest in NHL history to score 300 points with 210 games played behind Wayne Gretzky (159 GP), Mario Lemeiux (186 GP) and Peter Stastny (186). He is the 4th fastest to 400 point points with 277 games played behind Gretzky (197 GP), Lemieux (240 GP) and Stastny (247). As well as the 5th fastest to 500 points with 352 games played behind Gretzky (234 GP), Lemieux (287 GP), Stastny (322 GP), and Mike Bossy (349 GP), and the 6th fastest to 600 points with 429 games played, again behind Gretzky (273 GP), Lemieux (323 GP), Stastny (394 GP), Bossy (400 GP), and Jari Kurri (419 GP).
As far as awards go, he has a Hart Trophy (1995), Lester B. Pearson Award (now Ted Lindsay Trophy) in 1995, NHL First-team All-Star in 1995, NHL Second-team All-Star in 1996, and was a part of seven All-Star Games.
When you look at the statistics, it screams Hall of Fame talent. However his time as a hockey player was fraught with controversy. This makes him a unique case for the Selection Committee. As I mentioned before, I think it comes down to two questions. Do you view Lindros as a “head case” or a trailblazer? And does the end of his career mean more than the prime of his career? Everyone is going to have a different answer on both of those. So regardless on what your answer is, it should just be accepted.
Feel free to comment or let me know who you think should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame either on the comment section here, by email at
[email protected], or on Twitter @Kirshenblatt.
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