He's a Hall of Fame player.
Even Bob Clarke says so.
Unfortunately, he too is not on the committee.
These hockey people have no sense of humor.
How fun would that be, Clarkie, Bonnie and Carl, all holed up in the same room after all these years, arguing on the same side?
Instead, the room will consist of some who played against Lindros, some who coached against him, some who chronicled his exploits and executives who ran the teams he went up against. The names include Colin Campbell, Harry Sinden, Pat Quinn, Serge Savard and John Davidson.
They will argue whether his proficiency over the short term is more or less important than the lack of longevity to his stardom. They will debate and try to quantify intangibles like leadership and the influence of his play on others.
They will talk championships, of course, or the lack of them. Did the Flyers simply not surround him with the talent that Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux had, the two players with whom he was most often compared?
Or did Lindros just not do enough with the likes of John LeClair and Eric Desjardins and Ron Hextall - all nominees with him this year?
Here's what I think: Lindros was blessed and cursed by the same unique combination of skill and size. Comparisons with Gretzky and Lemieux were too narrow, invariably boiling down to talk of championships and leadership. Lindros never had the sidekicks Lemieux had, and the personnel of Gretzky's Oilers still sounds like a Canadian Olympic gold-medal team.
Of the two, only Lemieux had to maneuver through the clutch-and-grab trap era, and then only toward the end of his career. He complained about it constantly, mentioned it when he retired briefly while battling through Hodgkin's disease. Would Lindros have been more dominant in another era - like this one? Would he have suffered fewer than eight concussions with the more punitive rules in effect today?
