Lindros should be in the Hall

[Melrose Munch]

Was there ever really a player as complete and dominant?

Lindros should be in the hall.

Click to read more...

 

[Scandale du Jour]

Mario Lemieux.

No.

 

[jkrx]

Gordie Howe

No.

 

[seventieslord]

Plenty of players have been more complete and dominant.

Should he be in the hall? Absolutely.

 

[TheBannermen]

If Neely is a Hall of Famer, Lindros is a Hall of Famer.

 

[jkrx]

If Neely is a Hall of Famer, Lindros is a Hall of Famer.

Sad but true.

 

[CoupeStanley]

Oh sure yes... and I hated him with a passion.

I value peak over longetivity and Lindros peak was up there with the best of them.

He's definitely an Hall of Fame caliber player even if didn't play very long and is cup-less.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

from a thread three years ago, right after lindros retired, when bobby clarke publicly backed him for the hall:

some comparables for lindros -- cam neely, pavel bure, peter forsberg. neely is a hall of famer (though his status as a hall of famer is highly arguable), and forsberg will be, no questions asked. like orr, their bodies broke down early because of the way they played. you discount their short careers because they gave up length of career for quality.

bure, i would say, is the same. he wasn't a physical player, but the insane training regimen his father put him on at a very very early age made him the player he was. (notice that his brother valeri also retired early from injuries.) public perception of bure as a selfish player may eventually keep him out of the hall, even though the only players to have scored more goals per game than him are mike bossy and mario lemieux, (for now, alex ovechkin is a bit behind bure), or that he finished in the top ten in scoring every year he played more than 65 games (except his second year in the league, even though he scored a career high 60/110 that year).

and this is how we get to lindros. public perception has not been kind to lindros. but he missed TWO entire years of his career pouting. yes, his playing style may have eventually led to his health troubles. but that doesn't discount the fact that he wasted two prime years of his career -- because of his unique physical gifts, he would have been in his prime at 18 -- trying to choose where he would play. if he had played those two years (assuming he stayed moderately healthy), he would have finished with almost 500 goals and well over 1,000 points. those numbers, combined with his hart trophy and the fact that he was the most dominant player in the league for a handful of years, would have ensured his place in the hall. the fact that he threw those years away, i think, should count against him -- even if a lot of people have been blaming his parents in the last two days.

despite what his ex-teammates have been saying the last week, i never thought lindros cared all that much about hockey. he was a once-in-a-generation talent, but his excellence was much more talent than desire... the kind of guy who i imagine, if his career had turned out like alexandre daigle's, might have retired early and never looked back. on the other hand, you get forsberg, whose will to win you could never doubt. bure, whose will to score you could never doubt. nobody EVER looked more happy to play hockey than theo fleury. and, while each of these three players may have made decisions that kept him off the ice or even shortened his career, in the end, i don't resent forsberg, bure, or fleury the way i resent lindros for never coming through -- at least not all the way -- on their enormous, god-given talent.

 

[El Dandy*]

Question 1: There were other players who were as/more complete and dominant.

Question 2: Yes.

People, take off the *He ****ed over Quebec* colored glasses and look at the stats/impact on the game and laundry list of accomplishments.

Guy belongs in the Hall. Measure his career along with other guys in the Hall and it will be revealed that he belongs in their company. Fact

 

[SidGenoMario]

3 consecutive seasons with over 1.5 PPG. Beast. I'm one of the guys who favor dominant peaks over consistent compiling, so I think he should hands down be in.

 

[seventieslord]

3 consecutive seasons with over 1.5 PPG. Beast. I'm one of the guys who favor dominant peaks over consistent compiling, so I think he should hands down be in.

Regardless of what you favour, the guy did enough to get in.

 

[Duc620]

Yes. Because he singlehandedly created the Avalanche dynasty.

 

[Melrose Munch]

2 cups in five years is not a dynasty.

 

[reckoning]

Yes. Because he singlehandedly created the Avalanche dynasty.

So Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy had nothing to do with those Avs Cups?

 

[mja]

So Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy had nothing to do with those Avs Cups?

The Lindros trade partially results in Roy.

The trade really set the Avs up for years. The assets they acquired led to other assets, which led to still more assets. It was the trade that just kept on giving.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

If Neely is a Hall of Famer, Lindros is a Hall of Famer.

Neely's playoff resume blown Lindros' out of the water.

Both players are extremely borderline on the strength of their regular season accomplishments alone. The difference is, Lindros doesn't have the playoff accomplishments to push him over the top like Neely does.

All the negatives that come along with Eric Lindros are enough for me to say he shouldn't be in the HOF.

I'll throw Martin St. Louis out there as a comparable. Both players have a Hart and a Pearson, as well as an Art Ross (I'll give Lindros credit for one for tying for the scoring title). Both have a couple of other top-10 finishes in the points race. Both have a few top-10's in goals and assists. Lindros having some great 50-game seasons has little sway with me. How many HOFers are there that didn't come close to playing one complete full season in their prime?

Most people consider St. Louis to a be a pretty marginal candidate at this point. Now lets imagine he was a complete a-hole who screwed over multiple franchises. Would you vote for him? I sure wouldn't, and this is partly why I wouldn't vote for Lindros.

 

[lextune]

Plenty of players have been more complete and dominant.

Should he be in the hall? Absolutely.

^This.

 

[unknown33]

1) Yes.
2) Yes.

 

[reckoning]

The Lindros trade partially results in Roy.

The trade really set the Avs up for years. The assets they acquired led to other assets, which led to still more assets. It was the trade that just kept on giving.

That's a stretch. It's not like Thibault was the key to the deal. If he wasn't there, it would've been Fiset. It's not as if when they made the Lindros trade, Quebec was thinking "we can trade Thibault for Patrick Roy in three years". Wherever Roy ended up going, that teams goalie would be going to Montreal in the deal.

Basically when the Avs won their first Cup, what they still had from the trade was Forsberg, Ricci, Simon and the money. You could say that Hextall became Deadmarsh, or Duchesne became Krupp, but that's a huge assumption considering there were other players involved in those deals.

Quebec won the trade. And it played a huge role in the teams progression to Cup champions. But it didn't "singlehandedly" do it.

 

[John Flyers Fan]

Neely's playoff resume blown Lindros' out of the water.

Both players are extremely borderline on the strength of their regular season accomplishments alone. The difference is, Lindros doesn't have the playoff accomplishments to push him over the top like Neely does.

Regular season isn't close, Lindros was significantly better than Neely.

Playoff dominance for Neely ???

89 points in 93 games .... 3 big playoff seasons - 88, 89, 91

Neely never won a Cup, and the two seasons he made the Finals the Bruins were eliminated with ease.

Lindros has a playoff scoring title, and had one year that his team made the finals, where they were eliminated with ease.

The regular season difference, is much larger than the postseason difference.




Personally I wouldn't have either in the Hall of Fame, but if Neely is in, Lindros MUST be enshrined at some point.

 

[mja]

That's a stretch. It's not like Thibault was the key to the deal. If he wasn't there, it would've been Fiset. It's not as if when they made the Lindros trade, Quebec was thinking "we can trade Thibault for Patrick Roy in three years". Wherever Roy ended up going, that teams goalie would be going to Montreal in the deal.

Basically when the Avs won their first Cup, what they still had from the trade was Forsberg, Ricci, Simon and the money. You could say that Hextall became Deadmarsh, or Duchesne became Krupp, but that's a huge assumption considering there were other players involved in those deals.

Quebec won the trade. And it played a huge role in the teams progression to Cup champions. But it didn't "singlehandedly" do it.

Or that Deadmarsh in turn became Blake, etc.

I'm sure Quebec wasn't thinking about Patrick Roy or Adam Deadmarsh/Rob Blake or Uwe Krupp when they made the deal. The fact remains that they were able to parlay the assets they acquired in the Lindros trade into other key players repeatedly for pretty much an entire decade. Sure, there were other assets mixed in, of course there were. However, it doesn't change the provenance of the assets that did results from the trade.

 

[Chili]

Hall of Famers should be great players their whole careers, not just a part of it.

No.

 

[Trottier]

Was there ever really a player as complete and dominant?

Is this a serious question?

The history of hockey is glorious, even dating waaaaay back to the 1980s. Worth checking out.

Lindros should be in the hall.

Wouldn't get my vote (if I had one), but won't lose sleep if he enters.

 

[mja]

Hall of Famers should be great players their whole careers, not just a part of it.

No.

He was a consistently elite player the better part of his career, and the part of his career he wasn't an elite player was entirely due to injury.

 

[Chili]

He was a consistently elite player the better part of his career, and the part of his career he wasn't an elite player was entirely due to injury.

Not getting into any argument, he's not a hall of famer to me. He didn't do nearly enough with the talent he had.