Another NHL trade deadline has come and gone, and despite missing a monster, multi-player blockbuster, the 2017 deadline was still fun to watch from afar as it always is. (more…)
Category: NHL
NHL Trade Deadline ’17: Caps, Wild go all in
Every year the NHL Trade Deadline comes with much fanfare around the league, and the 2017 deadline is off to a fast start thanks to a couple power moves by Cup-starved franchises. (more…)
Eric Lindros is in the Hall of Fame, finally
Growing up in the 1990’s as a Philadelphia sports fan wasn’t easy. The Sixers, Eagles and Phillies were all varying degrees of disappointing. But there was a ray of hope within the Flyers: a generational player with the rare combination of size, speed, skill and tenacity.
There was Eric Lindros.
The No. 1 overall pick in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft, Lindros wanted no part of the team that drafted him -the Quebec Nordiques. In the NHL’s equivalent to John Elway telling the Baltimore Colts “no thanks”- Lindros (and his family) demanded that he be traded. At the 1992 entry draft, Lindros got his long-awaited wish and was sent to Philadelphia for Steve Duchesne, Ron Hextall, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci, the rights to Peter Forsberg, the Flyers’ first-round pick in 1992 (seventh overall) and 1993 and $15 million.
It was a kings ransom, but worth the risk given the ridiculously immense talent of the former Oshawa Generals star.
As a 19-year-old rookie in 1992-93, Lindros piled up 75 points in 61 games -including 41 goals. But it wasn’t just his scoring touch that took notice around the league, his 147 penalty minutes showed the Flyers’ star could dish out as much punishment as got.
Lindros truly was a special talent. There have been plenty of players with point-per-game averages and 40-goal seasons, but not the way that Eric Lindros did. He was a proverbial bull in a china shop, a player with one speed that bordered on reckless abandon. He’d run you over with a massive hit, speed past your teammates and then embarrass whoever the unlucky SOB was in goal that night. Lindros was a relentless, brute force that the NHL hadn’t yet seen and might never again see.
It was magical to watch Eric Lindros as a Flyers fan growing up. I’d heard stories from my Dad about how great Bobby Clarke was. How great Rick MacLeish was, and Reggie Leach and so on. I knew they were great, I’d seen old games of the 70’s Flyers beating some poor team to a pulp, but it was different for me with Lindros. I grew up watching one of the five best players in the game, and he was on my team. How cool is that?
I’m 26 now, and have seen just one championship in my lifetime: 2008 Phillies forever. I’ve seen Allen Iverson’s step over, Starship 12, Cole Hamels’ untouchable 2008 postseason, the Michael Vick Experience 2.0 and Donovan McNabb’s Birds. But by far, the best athlete at any given time in the last 30 years in this town is Eric Lindros, and it’s not even close.
Iverson’s will was unmatched, mind you, but nothing matched the combination of size and skill that Lindros had. There just hasn’t been another one like him.
Despite injuries costing him parts of three of his eight seasons in Philadelphia, Lindros averaged 36 goals and 82 points per season. He averaged 1.35 points per game as a Flyer, which would finish fifth all-time had he not played anywhere else. That’s right there with Gretzky, Lemieux, Bossy and Orr; the Mount Rushmore of hockey.
His career 1.13 ppg mark is 19th all-time, despite four largely unproductive years in the twilight of his career with the Rangers, Stars and Maple Leafs after a slew of concussions. Had he played on without those injuries, Lindros was easily a top 10 all-timer, leaning toward the top five.
While his greatness early on doesn’t erase the games lost due to injury (more than 200), it does justify his place in the Hall of Fame. Induction is a nod to the best the game has to offer, and hockey would be remiss if Lindros wasn’t to be included -even after a six year wait.
As a fan, I’ll never forget watching Eric Lindros -first at The Spectrum, then at the now-Wells Fargo Center- because it was always a truly unique experience. No. 88 was a powder keg every time he stepped on the ice, programmed to seek and destroy: a predestined Flyer and now a Hall of Famer.
Congrats, “Big E.”
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Flyers, Hakstol improving together
This summer many were skeptical when the Philadelphia Flyers made Dave Hakstol the first college coach to make the jump to the NHL in more than two decades. (more…)
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