[Devils-list] Lindros the wuss

[MartinDevs@aol.com]

Well, seeing that New Jersey is always bashed in the New York papers, it's 
nice to see a New Jersey paper take a stab back by writing about New York in 
a negative light.

http://www.nj.com/sports/ledger/index.ssf?/sports/ledger/142b43e.html


Vaccaro: Ignorance is bliss -- until that first big hit 

08/21/01

BY MIKE VACCARO
STAR-LEDGER STAFF


NEW YORK -- The delusion was everywhere, infiltrating every corner of The 
Theater at Madison Square Garden. That was the saddest part, really. The 
Rangers trotted Eric Lindros onto a podium, handed him an official Broadway 
blue shirt, No. 88, let the cameras catch him shaking hands with Mark 
Messier. 


Then tried to pretend that they were presenting a perfectly restored matinee 
idol behind this splendidly orchestrated photo op. 


"We won big here, we won this trade," said the coach, Ron Lowe. 


"Every time you get a headache now, people start screaming concussion," said 
the general manager, Glen Sather. "Hey, if a guy comes at you, I've always 
said, make him pay." 


"We wouldn't put our son in danger," said the father, Carl Lindros, "so you 
can draw your own conclusion how confident we are." 


"Here's what people don't realize," said the guest of honor, "and that's that 
I have been symptom-free for 15 months now." 


He has also been hockey-free for 15 months, which goes a long way toward 
explaining why the cobwebs have cleared. But, then, why shouldn't Lindros 
talk boldly about his future, skip gently around the small issue of those six 
concussions in 27 months? Everyone else at Two Pennsylvania Plaza talks as if 
they've forgotten about them. 


"Believe me," said Carl Lindros, who already has seen the career of one of 
his sons, Brett, cut short due to post concussion syndrome. "We aren't 
talking ourselves into anything here." 


Actually, that's exactly what they are doing: the Rangers, Lindros, Lindros' 
parents, everyone who wants to believe that the Rangers acquired one of the 
great players in NHL history instead of what they've actually gotten at the 
world's most famous arena. 


Which is the world's most famous hockey freak show. 


For that is what the Rangers will have on their hands from the moment 
training camp opens on Sept. 12. Every time Lindros ventures into a corner, 
every time he approaches a blue line (which, from the time he was 5 years 
old, he's done with his head down), every time he enters a scrum, every eye 
in every building will be lasered on him. 


Will he fall down? Will he bleed? Will he pass out? 


Will he get back up again? 


"Real hockey fans don't care about that stuff," Carl Lindros said. "They just 
care, did we win last night? And having Eric around will help the Rangers win 
more hockey games. It's that simple. You can't worry about the people on the 
fringe." 


He's wrong, of course, dangerously wrong. Yes, there is an element of casual 
hockey fan that will be drawn to this unseemly passion play strictly for the 
potential of seeing someone slam Lindros into stratosphere. But there is also 
a part of every true-blue hockey fan that will harbor the same fascination. 
That would have happened wherever Lindros decided to further his career. It 
just falls on the Rangers now, who have volunteered to sponsor this 
three-ring folly. 


You don't think so? Ask yourself this question: If the Scott Stevens hit that 
sent Lindros into this 15-month exile had been delivered in New Jersey, 
rather than Philadelphia, would it have been greeted by the funereal silence 
that filled the First Union Center -- or a deafening WWF-vintage roar? 


You know the answer to that. 


The real pity is that the Rangers actually seem to believe they have gotten a 
steal here, that they have gotten the Eric Lindros whose brutal elegance 
dominated the Eastern Conference for so many years. 


Instead, what they get is a Catch-22 on skates. 


For if Lindros has committed to changing his style of play, as he said time 
and again yesterday, then by definition he will no longer be the player he 
was, which, at its best, was a combination of Stevens-type fury with Mario 
Lemieux-like grace. Yet if he tries to regain his old form, goes back to his 
beautifully bludgeoning approach, he won't last three shifts before he's 
stripped of his senses for a seventh time. 


"We don't look at this as a risk," Sather said. "Just a deal. And a good 
deal." 


Eight miles west of Sather's table, sitting on the other side of one river 
and one continental divide of common sense, Lou Lamoriello spent his 
afternoon in meetings, monitoring the Garden's party only peripherally. 
Lamoriello has been around hockey, and hockey players, too long to believe 
he'd seen the last of Lindros. 


"The way I look at it, it's a terrific thing for hockey, forget about the 
particulars," said the chief Devil. "Eric Lindros finding a home, that gets 
our sport in the newspapers in August, and all over the radio and the 
television, and how often do you see that? It's a great thing for our game." 


Beyond that, though, it is an appropriate thumbnail detailing the differences 
between two teams whose rivalry lies smoldering in the embers of the Rangers' 
recent calamity. For while the Rangers have always found it easy to own the 
local hockey conversation in August, it is the Devils who capture everyone's 
undivided attention come May. 


By which time the Rangers are getting a head start on next year. Again. 


Eric Lindros, circa 1997, would have done something about that woeful cycle. 
But, then, Eric Lindros, circa 1997, would never have been available, no 
matter the size of Bob Clarke's ulcer. What the Rangers get is a Lexus 
missing air conditioning and cruise control on a summer's day. It may well 
get them where they need to go. 


But probably won't. 


Again. 


Mike Vaccaro appears regularly 


in The Star-Ledger.