Quite a thread bump!
I thought Linden was awesome circa 1988 to 1995, but he is your go-to example of "declined suddenly" (prematurely) after that. During those seven years, he was consistently better than Ronning ever was, in my opinion.
Ronning probably does deserve a little more appreciation and he was a small scrapper, so I respect him. But in addition to the many intangibles that pre-1996 Linden had over him, I think a key distinction here is that when the games got bigger and the checking got tighter, Linden rose to the occasion, whereas Ronning kind of folded (not unusual in small players in such situations).
Someone mentioned the '91 L.A. series. Ronning looked like a stud early, and was the toast of BC after his overtime goal in game three. But then he basically disappeared after that, and I don't think that was an isolated incident.
Ronning did age well and more consistently, though.