Eric Lindros first NHL years

[Bubba88]

Hi,

I just wonder about #88. Was he the most viewed/hyped Youth Player in the NHL Alltime? or in other words. Is there any other who was most talked about?

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[Big Phil]

Lemieux and Orr. Gretzky had some very harsh critics that thought he wouldn't last but not the first two mentioned.

Other than that Lindros is probably above the Crosby/Lafleur category

 

[diligent_d]

Got to put Alexandre Daigle in there too somewhere - at the very least, in the same category as Crosby and Lafleur.

 

[Heat McManus]

Got to put Alexandre Daigle in there too somewhere - at the very least, in the same category as Crosby and Lafleur.

I don't remember the Daigle hype lasting years. Crosby was being hyped at least 4 years before his draft year. Too young to comment on Lafleur.

 

[diligent_d]

I don't remember the Daigle hype lasting years. Crosby was being hyped at least 4 years before his draft year. Too young to comment on Lafleur.

True enough - but I generally am speaking about the absolute critical mass of hype that befell Daigle in his actual draft year. He was to the saviour of the Senators, the next Mario Lemieux, etc...

 

[seventieslord]

Daigle was hyped like any other 1st overall pick, or a bit more. It was not Lindros/Lemieux/Crosby hype.

 

[tommygunn]

Daigle was hyped like any other 1st overall pick, or a bit more.

Whether he was deserving or not, because of the circumstances (French-Canadian kid going to infant Ottawa franchise), he was hyped A LOT more than 'any other 1st overall pick'.

 

[diligent_d]

Whether he was deserving or not, because of the circumstances (French-Canadian kid going to infant Ottawa franchise), he was hyped A LOT more than 'any other 1st overall pick'.

That's the way I remember it too.

 

[billbillbill]

True enough - but I generally am speaking about the absolute critical mass of hype that befell Daigle in his actual draft year. He was to the saviour of the Senators, the next Mario Lemieux, etc...

Daigle started his draft year on fire, with something like 80 points in his first 20 games. over 70 games that pace equates to 280 points, 2 off Lemieux's record. then he got suspended, and his production obviously fell off.

for what it's worth, that's likely where the comparisons started.

 

[william_adams]

I'm not sure there has EVER been a player more hyped than lindros was. Sure there were haters, but they were hating on the parents or his attitude about the draft etc, not about his play. Everybody agreed he'd be a superstar.

The kid was featured in a long jay greenberg piece in sports illustrated when he was 16. (not like si has ever allocated much column space to hickey at all...)

then he dominated at the olympics as an 18 year old.

So when he finally got to the NHL it was all lindros all the time. And this was an era before sports radio, tsn 24-hour coverage, twittering hockey journalists, hfboards...

Certainly all of the contraversy surrounding him didn't hurt the hype either.

 

[BobRouse]

I'm not sure there has EVER been a player more hyped than lindros was. Sure there were haters, but they were hating on the parents or his attitude about the draft etc, not about his play. Everybody agreed he'd be a superstar.

The kid was featured in a long jay greenberg piece in sports illustrated when he was 16. (not like si has ever allocated much column space to hickey at all...)

then he dominated at the olympics as an 18 year old.

So when he finally got to the NHL it was all lindros all the time. And this was an era before sports radio, tsn 24-hour coverage, twittering hockey journalists, hfboards...

Certainly all of the contraversy surrounding him didn't hurt the hype either.

I'm probably wrong about this but did Lindros not play in the Canada Cup before he even played an NHL game?

I know he played in the Olympics with Juneau.

Yeah Lindros was ULTRA hyped. I collected Hockey Cards back then and everyone was trying to get their hands on Lindros cards.

There was a reason why he returned so much for the Nordiques when they traded him. You would think his value would go down "somewhat" since he outwardly expressed that he would NOT play for them thus forcing a trade.

 

[Hollywood Burrows]

I'm probably wrong about this but did Lindros not play in the Canada Cup before he even played an NHL game?

I know he played in the Olympics with Juneau.

Yeah Lindros was ULTRA hyped. I collected Hockey Cards back then and everyone was trying to get their hands on Lindros cards.

There was a reason why he returned so much for the Nordiques when they traded him. You would think his value would go down "somewhat" since he outwardly expressed that he would NOT play for them thus forcing a trade.

Yep, he was on the 1991 Canada Cup team before he played in the NHL. He dished out some huge hits in that tournament.

The Lindros hype was off the charts, a lot of it was related to off-ice stuff. The incident in the bar, the reputation his parents had for meddling, his refusal to go to the Soo, etc.

I was young when he broke in, all I really remember is he was a beast. The biggest, hardest hitting player I'd ever seen.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Yep, he was on the 1991 Canada Cup team before he played in the NHL. He dished out some huge hits in that tournament.

The Lindros hype was off the charts, a lot of it was related to off-ice stuff. The incident in the bar, the reputation his parents had for meddling, his refusal to go to the Soo, etc.

I was young when he broke in, all I really remember is he was a beast. The biggest, hardest hitting player I'd ever seen.

he had a canada cup gold ('91) and olympic silver ('92) before ever playing in the NHL (his first game was in the fall of '92).

re: daigle hype, you knew listening to it that any comparison of daigle with lemieux or lafleur were ridiculously hyperbolic, like when oleg tverdovsky was called "the russian bobby orr" or petr nedved being compared to gretzky, viktor kozlov to lemieux, keith primeau to messier, vincent lecavalier to michael jordan. the isles GM who drafted him even compared brett lindros favourably to eric (i think this was milbury?)

but with lindros, you knew that he was going to be on that level of superstar. there are degrees of hype, ways of reading scouting reports, and, i'm sure i speak for all those who were there at the time, you just knew from the way you read/hear the hype the difference between a prospect like daigle, who was supposed to be a special player, and lindros, who was supposed to be much much more than that.

 

[lextune]

"Hype" seems to carry heavy connotations of trying to sell something that may or may not be for real so I will use the term "build-up" and say this:

The build-up for Orr, Gretzky, Lemieux and Lindros was absolutely enormous.

Even Crosby's build-up, which is what I'm sure all the younger posters here use as a point of reference, was nothing compared to those three.

EDIT: As Big Phil mentioned; Gretz had real detractors, but that did not waylay his build-up at all. If anything it sort of added to the drama of it.

 

[mobilus]

Yep, he was on the 1991 Canada Cup team before he played in the NHL. He dished out some huge hits in that tournament.

He broke the collarbones of both Ulf Samuelsson and Martin Rucinsky.