Eric “The Big “E” Lindros retired from hockey this week and the news left me scratching my, um, head, trying to assess number 88’s career.

On the heels of a dominating junior career with the Oshawa Generals of the Ontario hockey league and with the Quebec Nordiques equipped with the first overall pick in the 1991 entry draft, Eric Lindros decided to go punk and proclaimed he did not want to play in Quebec.

It went something like this, “I, Eric of Swedish descent, shall not cut ice with my artistic blades in a place such as this!”

Of course, I paraphrase.

At the time, there was tremendous hype around a player people ordained the “Next One.” Crosby, for the record, is the “Real Next One.”

Indeed, not only did Lindros have a menacing aspect to his game but was given a 6’4’’ 240 pound frame by God. That helps enormously if you’re going to ram people into a goal post or the boards.

He had all the tools to revolutionize the power forward position.

In the OHL, Lindros was a man among boys. During the 1990-1991 season, he led the league in scoring with 71 goals, 71 assists and 149 points – in 57 games. He was so dominant that he even before ever playing a shift in the NHL he was invited to join a star-studded Team Canada team (the same squad who cut Steve Yzerman) that won the Canada cup in 1991.

In 1992, Nordiques traded the centerman to the Flyers where he would stay put until 2000. The Flyers gave up a bunch of decent players and some guy named Peter Forsberg. With the Screaming Viking (please catch the Cheers reference) les Nordiques found themselves with a core nucleus of talent that would eventually become a two-time Stanley cup powerhouse with the Colorado Avalanche.

The fans of Quebec deserve a moment of silence. After enduring numerous scandalously embarrassing seasons, team owner Marcel Aubut split with the treasure in 1995 to Colorado. In 1996, they won their first Stanley Cup. Ouch, for real.

With an unorthodox start to his pro career, Lindros immediately fell into two categories: either he was going to flop or be everything hockey experts thought he was going to be.
In reality, his career ended up being somewhere in the middle. He certainly did not live up to the hype but he did have a productive career. Lindros was no chopped liver as he helped to lead the perennially goalie-challenged Philadelphia Flyers to a Stanley Cup final, only to lose to the Detroit Red Wings – where he was thoroughly neutralized.