VOORHEES, N.J. – Should the Flyers wait? For what?
For Eric Lindros, with one short practice under his belt, to get into game condition? That will take to mid-June, by which time the Cup will likely be in any of three places other than Philadelphia.
Should they hold off for a potential Game 7 to give him at least a few days to skate? That would put Lindros back into the position
of being a superhero coming to the rescue, which is not only impossible for a player out 73 days following a third concussion of the season, but the antithesis of the conditions under which the players will be happy to have the defrocked captain back. Lindros has to return content at first to be just another good player, or the whole concept these guys bought into when he left the lineup in mid-March falls apart.
Eleven victories into the playoffs without him, perhaps they have earned the right to get through this round on their own, which would leave almost a week for Lindros to prepare and coach Craig Ramsay to reset lines for a fresh start in a new series. But that would assuming there is one, and there may not be, judging from the way the Flyers’ play fell of a cliff from Games 4 to 5.
They could use some new juice tonight, so damn the minimal disruption involved with spotting Lindros fourth-line minutes. If the Flyers blow the series, the coaching move to be second-guessed occurred in Game 4, when Ramsay, to accommodate the return of Daymond Langkow, broke up the John LeClair-Mark Recchi-Simon Gagne combination.
LeClair and Recchi were playing out of position on that line, but you wouldn’t have known by their performances or Gagne’s, who lost ice time in the shuffle. After a loss is when you make changes, which tonight should include reuniting Recchi, LeClair and Gagne and getting one of the game’s best players time to begin to rebuild his game to where it will have to be for the Flyers to win the Stanley Cup.
So they are not waiting for Lindros to take back criticism of the team medical staff for not diagnosing symptoms he admits withholding from them. That apology will come the same day the NHL calls back the Sabres to resume Game 2 from the point Philadelphia’s tying goal went in a hole in the side of the net.
Meanwhile, neither is Lindros waiting for GM Bob Clarke and owner Ed Snider to fire everybody in the organization the Lindros family has wanted gone at one time or another. The Flyers are five games away from everything an NHLer plays for. And in what may be a short career, threatened by repeated head traumas, Lindros doesn’t know if he’ll ever get this close again.
Thus, no matter how great his degree of disillusionment with the lack of support from the people who run the franchise, no matter how nervous they in turn are about disrupting what has turned into an exceedingly harmonious locker room, the alternative is to keep a big weapon holstered out of spite or unnecessary caution.
So as long as the independent doctor who chastised the Flyers for their carelessness says Lindros’ brain is clear, it’s a no-brainer to put him in there, no matter how rusty he obviously is going to be.
The general manager’s son-in-law, Peter White, will be replaced tonight for a 6-5, 240-pound superstar. Valeri Zelepukin or Keith Jones will lose the power-play spots they have held for lack of better alternatives so that one of the game’s most lethal wrist shots might just once overpower Martin Brodeur.
Lindros, who knows he has alienated some teammates, will be smart enough not to say boo, except to Devils who, like everybody else in the league, look around when the Big E is bearing down on them. He doesn’t have to make a big splash, only a few well-timed splats. Ramsay won’t have to worry about Lindros overstaying his shifts, not the way his lungs are going to be burning after 25 seconds.
“We’re more worried about this than our players are,” said a member of the Flyer hierarchy. “They’ll police it. He’s not coming back as the star.”
Lindros doesn’t need that pressure anyway, He needs only the sport’s biggest stage, the Stanley Cup Finals, to demonstrate that reports his career is dying are premature. Only dreamers here see Lindros kissing the Cup, then Clarke, and living happily ever after. But five wins from the ultimate prize, dreams can be powerful fuel.