Forsberg. He actually kinda was what Lindros was supposed to be. And he was that for a long time.
I feel like the mythos of "The Lindros" has grown to kind of insane proportions these days. Yes, he was good when he was healthy...but even at his peak, he wasn't this McDavid-esque talent who completely changed the game as people seem to refer to him. He played great on a completely dope line with a pair of other terrific players. Did well...and then his career basically ended. It's crazy to me, the reverence he's somehow garnered as a player based on that. It's on a totally different level, from my perception of what he was and what he did as a player.
This post reads like someone trying to survey the wreckage 25 years later and completely missing the mark on literally everything.
Peter Forsberg is all-time great and a Hall of Famer, two time cup champion, Hart, Art Ross, all that great stuff. He was a warrior, was also unfortunately cut down by injuries, but wasn't really what Lindros was supposed to be.
Eric Lindros was supposed to be Mario Lemieux with a temper. That's what he was drafted as, and that's why a franchise would pay $15 million in 1992 plus an entire farm system worth of prospects and veterans to get him. This isn't mythology, this is what the hockey world was projecting.
He didn't play on a "dope line." He was a 22 year old prodigy and Hart Trophy winner - also tied Jagr for the Art Ross - who turned an underachieving John Leclair into a 50 goal man literally overnight. It was basically the equivalent of Connor McDavid breathing life into Leon Draisaitl's career. Mikael Renberg was a good player early in his career and suffered his own injury issues, but didn't do anything away from the Legion of Doom line.
By 1996, he had posted a 115 point, 47 goal season in 73 games, which is as good as anything McDavid has done to date.
He changed the landscape of the Eastern Conference. Notice how teams were drafting big and skilled after 1993 in the Lindros arms race: Chris Pronger to Hartford. Traded for Brendan Shanahan. Then Keith Primeau. Chris Gratton to Tampa. Jovocop in Florida. New Jersey's Dead Puck revolution led by Scott Stevens. Then towards the end of the decade you had guys like Joe Thornton and Vincent Lecavalier coming up as 6'4" super center prospects.
By 1997, Lindros was 24 and leading the Flyers to the Stanley Cup finals, beating Mario Lemieux and the Penguins in the first round and Lindros' childhood hero Mark Messier in the conference finals. It was by all accounts a passing of the torch, though unfortunately for Lindros, the Detroit Red Wings had other plans. But even then, Lindros was firmly cemented among his generation's best, alongside Jagr, Forsberg, Kariya and Sakic,
After 1996-97, the injury troubles started mounting, Philadelphia declined as a contender and culminated in the punctured lung incident, the Scott Stevens hit in the conference finals and a very public falling out with Bob Clarke around 2001. But by that time Lindros was already past his peak and prime.
