Was Crosby the most hyped NHL prospect of all time?

[TNT87]

Lindros.

 

[b in vancouver]

Montreal made a trade with the Rockies that allowed them to get their pick in the year that was supposed to be the Gretzky draft -- 4 years before the actual draft




Habs took Wickenheiser with the pick

No doubt. Gretzky was one of the most hyped players ever. People knew he was on the way - for years.
As a Bruins fan - thank God for the WHA and the Baby Bulls leading the way with 17 year-olds. Although living in Calgary in the 80s was a mixed blessing.

 

[McDavidCrushedLarkin]

Lindros easily and then Crosby but Matthews might eclipse that pretty quick the way things are going with his hype train as the best American player of all time.

 

[LeafFever]

The hype for Lindros on Team Canada at the Canada Cup was crazy.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Lindros easily and then Crosby but Matthews might eclipse that pretty quick the way things are going with his hype train as the best American player of all time.

How could Matthews eclipse anything when he has already been drafted?

He’s no longer a prospect anymore. He’s a young NHLer.

 

[Price is Wright]

Lindros.

This would be correct.

Lindros and Shaq came around the same time and hype for both was so big. People thought both sports were going to turn into leagues of giant muscle men ripping everyone apart.

 

[135ace]

The hype for Lindros was insane. Crosby was closer to McDavid in that he's "generational" and could be a 100+ point scorer. Lindros was literally regarded as being potentially better than Gretzky.

 

[57special]

Bobby Orr.
- everyone and their grandmother was waiting for him to be in the NHL.

Wayne Gretzky.
- started hearing stories about him since he was 12. I think 'The Great One' was a nickname he got at 14.

I don't remember Orr being that big of a deal. I do recall reading about Gretzky when he was 9 or 10, playing with older kids, and scoring 400 goals in a year.
Lemieux was massively hyped. Lesser noise was made about Lafleur, Dionne, and Perrault
Too young to be around for Beliveau, but he was a big deal when he was with the Aces.
Lindros was huge.
Daigle, too, believe it or not.

 

[57special]

Crosby was hyped as the next Gretzky. By media and fans. I don't know who else fits that bill, not old enough to know if Lindros got that level of hype too.

Lindros was"the next one". Definitely more hyped than Crosby, maybe more than Gretzky. His parents weren't exactly shy.

 

[RandV]

This is tough to measure. Between Crosby and Lindros though Crosby obviously had a farther reach because of the internet but I feel like overall the hype wasn't as strong as it was for Lindros.

How I kind of see it is with Lindros we were coming off a spoiled era where you had Gretzky and Lemieux overlapping each other. So it was kind of assumed that he was the next big thing to follow in their footsteps. Also adding to the fuel while we didn't really have the internet this was the middle of the collectors boom.

Crosby on the other hand came in during a post-Gretzky/Lemieux lull, so in general the opinion seemed to shift from 'this kid is the next Gretzky/Lemiuex' to 'there will never be another Gretzky/Lemieux'. So the hype with Crosby was obviously still there and huge but I see it as a much tougher crowd.

...Could just be my own bias though, as I was too young to remember any the hype for Lemieux and Gretzky, entering my teens when it was time to hype Lindros (still have my Score Lindros rookie card!), and an adult by the time we got to Crosby.

 

[RattsSSV]

Lindros had an insane amount of hype. For someone coming into the draft his size, strength, and talent has been unmatched.

As for Gretzky, everyone knew he was talented but being so skinny there were concerns he was going to get destroyed playing against such a hard hitting league.

 

[MVP of West Hollywd]

Lol if people include McDavid & Tavares into this discussion than Ovi belongs too. He was way more hyped than Tavares and on par and possibly even more than Connor. Just a short story for young fellas:
"The following off-season, Ovechkin was selected first overall in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft by the Washington Capitals. He had been projected as the first overall pick for nearly two years and had earned comparisons to Mario Lemieux. He was so highly regarded that the Florida Panthers attempted to draft him in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft in the ninth round, even though his birthday was two days after the cut-off (15 September 1985). Rick Dudley, the general manager of the Panthers, claimed the pick was legitimate, claiming that Ovechkin was old enough with leap years taken into consideration."

I'm sure internally teams were sky high on Ovechkin but because he was Russian and people were talking more about Crosby during the lockout I remember him being overlooked a little bit until he got everyone's attention when the season started.

 

[MVP of West Hollywd]

This is tough to measure. Between Crosby and Lindros though Crosby obviously had a farther reach because of the internet but I feel like overall the hype wasn't as strong as it was for Lindros.

How I kind of see it is with Lindros we were coming off a spoiled era where you had Gretzky and Lemieux overlapping each other. So it was kind of assumed that he was the next big thing to follow in their footsteps. Also adding to the fuel while we didn't really have the internet this was the middle of the collectors boom.

Crosby on the other hand came in during a post-Gretzky/Lemieux lull, so in general the opinion seemed to shift from 'this kid is the next Gretzky/Lemiuex' to 'there will never be another Gretzky/Lemieux'. So the hype with Crosby was obviously still there and huge but I see it as a much tougher crowd.

...Could just be my own bias though, as I was too young to remember any the hype for Lemieux and Gretzky, entering my teens when it was time to hype Lindros (still have my Score Lindros rookie card!), and an adult by the time we got to Crosby.

This makes sense. It's also why Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) is the GOAT prospect at the time in NBA history. Not just because of how dominant he was in HS/college but he came in after centers in George Mikan, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain had dominated the last two decades and it was easy to see him as just keeping the ball rolling.

 

[deletethis]

It was before the era of draft hype but Lemieux was heavily hyped as everyone knew he would be a superstar. Guy Lafleur was also heavily hyped from what I've read.

But I'll agree with others that no prospect was more heavily hyped than Lindros. We were talking about him when he was 15 years old. There was talk that he could have probably played in the NHL at that age, that's how heavy the hype was.

From my knowledge of hockey history, probably the most hyped prospect during the Original Six era was Jean Beliveau.

 

[mouser]

There's no other answer then Lindros. The hype was crazy.

 

[dr robbie]

In my 30 years of watching, it was quite easily Lindros. He was going to be the perfect hockey player.

 

[KoozNetsOff 92]

Lindros, not really close either. Absolutely ridiculous hype.

 

[The Panther]

I've been watching since 1986. By far the most 'hyped' player upon entering the NHL I've seen was Eric Lindros. (Crosby was not even close, and he also followed a wiped-out season, which meant a lot of fans had tuned out and were done with hockey until play re-started).

I think players like Gretzky and Lemieux had a fair degree of hype, but in those days (1979; 1984) there was little or no cable-TV based sports' coverage of hockey. Particularly in Gretzky's case, he was coming out of the WHA and into the NHL, and a lot of media-types didn't respect WHA-scorers entering the NHL. Added to this was Gretzky's non-physical style and skinny frame, and a lot of commentators didn't except him to do much. Lemieux was certainly a "can't miss" prospect, but I don't think the NHL draft was televised yet in '84, and as a French guy going to Pittsburgh (a nothing team at the time), Lemieux wouldn't have gotten as much coverage as if he'd come from Toronto and gone to Detroit or New York or whatever.

Anyway, Lindros was a major, major media hype. I mean, sports fan who didn't know the first thing about hockey were hearing about Lindros. He published an 'autobiography' a year before he had played an NHL game (and at 18 made Team Canada at the Canada Cup, alongside Gretzky and co.). The '91 NHL draft was broadcast live across Canada and the only thing talked about for hours was Lindros.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Lindros and Lemieux.

 

[Fantomas]

Of course. Crosby emerged when hfboards was just starting out and it was already super-popular, so the Internet was all aflutter about him. It was an insane amount of hype.

 

[kmart]

early 90s hype vs. 2005 hype ? its crosby not lindros

 

[enviro61]

Of course. Crosby emerged when hfboards was just starting out and it was already super-popular, so the Internet was all aflutter about him. It was an insane amount of hype.

HFBOARDS is insignificant in this regard. Anyone visiting hfboards would know about these types of players whether or not the internet existed. As well a few thousand or 10thousand subscribers back in the day is meaningless.

 

[colchar]

Easily the most hyped sports prospect of all time and there is legitamately no argument otherwise.

That's funny.

It got me thinking, was Crosby the most hyped prospect in regards to hockey?

No.

Imagine Beliveau. They bought the entire league to get him.

Yeah but was he known outside of Quebec?

 

[The Kingslayer]

Lindros hype was insane

 

[colchar]

if youre under 40 you shouldnt answer this thread

Yeah, like the OP thinking Lebron was the most hyped ever and that there is no argument to that. What a ridiculous statement.