there may have been more media voices when crosby was 15-18, but relative to the hype of his peers, i think it still has to be lindros. at least within the span of my memory, which is too short to remember mario.
he was supposed to gretzky with mario size and messier toughness and meanness. which, in 1990-'91, was the perfect player. gretzky was gretzky. messier was a recent MVP and captained a cup winner without gretzky. mario had just won the conn smythe and was arguably at his absolute peak.
and all the controversy surrounding lindros helped keep his name in the papers and on everyone's tongues. holding out with the greyhounds, publicly declaring that he wouldn't play for quebec before the draft, the accusations that he called a french teammate a "frog," that was huge news. the biggest controversy surrounding crosby was cherry blasting him for being a "hot dog." doesn't compare.
and plus, even if there was more media when crosby was coming up, people talked about lindros more in day to day conversation. there was a stretch run to follow, where people watched quebec trying to out-lose toronto. hell, considering how long the lindros hype cycle ran before the '91 draft, there was a whole season to watch who would finish last. would it be quebec, winnipeg, vancouver, the islanders, or the devils? in some ways, the hockey vacuum that was the lockout insulated crosby's draft, even though there were a lot of questions about how the league would decide that year's draft order.
one last thing about lindros is the newly booming hockey card market. a new brand (score) based its entire line around lindros. and another new brand (upper deck) largely made is mark on weaseling around lindros' exclusive contract with score. this has no bearing on who was the better player or prospect, but i think it made a lot of difference with regard to hype, at least to people of my age at the time.