Where Would Lindros rank All Time if injuries never squandered his potential?

[daver]

Just how good is Eric F in Lindros

Once again I"m just using numbers as facts.. here goes

Crosbys first 9 seasons. PPG Average 1.29
Mcdaivd first 9 seasons. PPG average 1.54
Lindros first 9 seasons. PPG average 1.34

LIndros first 9 seasons actually surpass sidney Crosby. side note, Lindros didnt play in the NHL D+1. Lindros also missed the entire 2001 season.

Not when you take these "facts" to make a subjective conclusion that he he was superior to Crosby. You are using numbers with zero context.

FACT: Crosby was clearly more dominant offensively than Lindros based on the % gap between him and his peers.

 

[daver]

But we never saw a healthy Lindros without the physicality.

After the 96/97 season, he had been going toe-to-toe with Jagr for best offensive player after Mario for the previous three seasons. He has had a playoff run worthy of his regular season dominance. He is the heir apparent to the best player in the world after Mario's retirement at age 23.

In 97/98, he is healthy for the first 55 games and is 6th in points and 5th in PPG: NHL Stats

In 98/99, he is healthy for the first 69 games and is 2nd in points and 3rd in PPG: NHL Stats

If we write off 97/98 as a down year, what do we think of his 98/99 season? Jagr has taken it up a notch while Lindros is battling with Selanne at his peak. He hasn't seemed to improved in two years. In 98/99, he also had a significant drop in his PIMs.

I think it is safe to say Lindros peaked early offensively in his career due to his size and physical maturity at a younger age than most and wasn't quite at peak Jagr's level.

Or was he already affected by injuries by 98/99 and we didn't see his true peak?

Or can we look at 98/99 as a healthy Lindros without his peak physicality?

 

[johnnybbadd]

Overrated player in my opinion. Forsberg alone made the trade with Quebec a W for them. If Forsberg was Canadian and Lindros Swedish there wouldn’t be such foolish nostalgia about him. Being compared to Lemieux by some here is a crime. He always was a meathead that let other players get under his skin and he was a selfish player that always cost his team. See World Cup 96 or Flyers playoff failures in the mid to late 90s as an example. Was also a very dirty player. When he got older he became more disciplined but by then his body betrayed him because of his dumb style earlier in his career.

 

[BLNY]

Top 100. Maybe. The injuries largely came from a complete lack of hockey sense. How many times does one have to skate around with their head down and get concussed before they learn? Clearly with Lindros it was X+1.

 

[bobholly39]

People are insane with their Lindros projections. He always gets overrated.

Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid aren't in contention for top 5 players of all-time because they cuold do really good at their best - they're in contention because they've shown the ability to play near that consistent level their whole career - 9 years for McDavid, 19 for Crosby....same idea for Ovechkin, Jagr, Beliveau, etc

We never saw any of that from Lindros. Wildly inconsistent

He had raw talent - but I don't believe he had the will or durability to be consistently elite every year and for a very long-time.

I voted top 50. I figured he'd end up in the ~30 range or so best case scenario.

Using the HOH's top 100 ranking as a point of reference:

Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time

Top-200 Hockey Players of All-Time The following is the final list of the top hockey players of all-time as determined by 32 voting members of the History of Hockey community. Report any errors to @quoipourquoi RankPlayerPositionBornNationBirth City 1Wayne GretzkyC1961CanadaBrantford...

forums.hfboards.com

I'd say anywhere from Messier (21st) to Yzerman (40th) is a plausible range for him.

 

[Cursed Lemon]

If we maintain that there is a separation between the Yzerman-Sakic-Trottier tier and the Crosby-Jagr-McDavid tier, then Lindros fits squarely into the former and there's no evidence to suggest otherwise.

 

[norrisnick]

I'm going top 25. Primarily on the basis, that if we magic him to semi-perfect health we ought to do the same to everyone.

 

[Video Nasty]

Very high. It’s not the end all be all, and it meant a heck of a lot more back then than now, but the Hockey News already had him ranked 54th all-time after just six seasons in the books.

With players like Crosby, Ovechkin, McDavid coming along since, it’s not a guarantee a healthy alternate version would slide inside the top 10 in the year 2024, but it’s possible.

Unfortunately, he became a what-if casualty and that’s an area I don’t spend a lot of time salivating over.

In terms of talent and potential, he, Jagr, and McDavid are the best players since after Lemieux made his debut. Being a top 3 player to step onto the ice in a forty year span seems like a top 10 player ever. In terms of reality and his overall career, I would struggle to rank him higher than 60th at this point.

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

His biggest strength was he was a threat to collide with people. That's how he created time and space. He was never going to last long term.
Imagine what Mario Lemieux could have done if he used the threat of collision to create time and space, on top of his skill set.

 

[snag]

Legion of Doom used to terrify me.

It's too bad his style of play in the era in which he played just did not bode well for longevity.

 

[Larry Hanson]

With today's rules I can't think of 10 players I'd take over 18 year old Lindros.

 

[Caps8112]

Top 5, but I value size and physicality a lot more than most people. To me he was basically like Lemieux offensively with Chris Pronger's size, nastiness and physicality. Complete monster, if you could import prime healthy Lindros into todays NHL he would be the most dominant player in the league in my opinion.

He would be in the penalty box most of the game today.

 

[Bard Marchand]

People are insane with their Lindros projections. He always gets overrated.

Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid aren't in contention for top 5 players of all-time because they cuold do really good at their best - they're in contention because they've shown the ability to play near that consistent level their whole career - 9 years for McDavid, 19 for Crosby....same idea for Ovechkin, Jagr, Beliveau, etc

We never saw any of that from Lindros. Wildly inconsistent

He had raw talent - but I don't believe he had the will or durability to be consistently elite every year and for a very long-time.

I voted top 50. I figured he'd end up in the ~30 range or so best case scenario.

Using the HOH's top 100 ranking as a point of reference:

Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time

Top-200 Hockey Players of All-Time The following is the final list of the top hockey players of all-time as determined by 32 voting members of the History of Hockey community. Report any errors to @quoipourquoi RankPlayerPositionBornNationBirth City 1Wayne GretzkyC1961CanadaBrantford...

forums.hfboards.com

I'd say anywhere from Messier (21st) to Yzerman (40th) is a plausible range for him.

You ignored the whole part of the topic being about "what if injuries never affected Lindros" though. The discussion here is based on that hypothetical scenario, not based on his actual injury history.

 

[Ace Card Bedard]

He was a beast.
I think he'd end up right there with Messier.

 

[pth2]

Injuries were an integral part of his game: In a more tightly-called game, required for him to not get injured as often, he would've been taking for too many penalties. He could only be a high-end performer in a league with few calls and blatant hooking, which made his size a massive advantage, but the physicality of his game at the time was required for him to be a high-end performer.

 

[T REX]

PACE is a fake, imaginary number.

You are what your point total is...every year. There are no do overs or what if's.

He couldn't stay on the ice before then. He was always made of glass.

 

[blundluntman]

PACE is a fake, imaginary number.

You are what your point total is...every year. There are no do overs or what if's.

He couldn't stay on the ice before then. He was always made of glass.

This is literally a thread based on a hypothetical question (by nature it's all based on projection). Not sure what you hope to accomplish by stating something everybody already knows.

 

[T REX]

This is literally a thread based on a hypothetical question (by nature it's all based on projection). Not sure what you hope to accomplish by stating something everybody already knows.

Yeah, silly premise to me. What if Gretzky was 5 inches taller and 30 more pounds?

What if McDavid skated at the speed of light?

We can what if all day long...seems like a waste of time to me. Overrated.

Have a nice day.

 

[Gordon Lightfoot]

To have been more of a long and consistent prime type of player, he would have had to play differently than he did. You can't play the way he did and have a healthy career. If he had toned down the physicality, he might not have been as dominant on a per game basis.

So I think you get less per game dominance and maybe slightly more or equal per season dominance in his prime but get a longer prime and career. I'm not sure he ends up top five or ten all-time, but he would generally be ranked higher than he is and his career would be considered better.

Solid point. It reminds me of when people say Chara wouldn’t be as good if he weren’t so tall and with such a reach.

 

[Felidae]

PACE is a fake, imaginary number.

You are what your point total is...every year. There are no do overs or what if's.

He couldn't stay on the ice before then. He was always made of glass.

It still holds value, but it depends.

Sure, with the player that has an abnormal PPG season compared to their previous history, you can take it with a grain of salt.

But for someone like Lindros and Malkin, who continuously finished top 10 in PPG for an entire decade, it stops becoming an outlier and its fair to say those players missed out. There's a reason nearly everyone ranks them among the top players of their era even though their games played is significantly lower compared to their peers.

 

[blundluntman]

Yeah, silly premise to me. What if Gretzky was 5 inches taller and 30 more pounds?

What if McDavid skated at the speed of light?

We can what if all day long...seems like a waste of time to me. Overrated.

Have a nice day.

A bit of a dramatic leap from a question about potential but I guess lol

 

[T REX]

It still holds value, but it depends.

Sure, with the player that has an abnormal PPG season compared to their previous history, you can take it with a grain of salt.

But for someone like Lindros and Malkin, who continuously finished top 10 in PPG for an entire decade, it stops becoming an outlier and its fair to say those players missed out. There's a reason nearly everyone ranks them among the top players of their era even though their games played is significantly lower compared to their peers.

Sports is filled with could a beens. That is the nature of sports. Barry Sanders would have obliterated the rushing record(probably lol). But we'll never know. Lindros is just another footnote. Nothing more. JMHO

 

[BKarchitect]

Absolutely elite…but are we erasing injuries for every other worldie who also suffered from bad misfortune?

Because just saying “Lindros gets a perfectly healthy and complete long career but nobody else does in this comp” isn’t exactly apples to apples.

 

[blundluntman]

Absolutely elite…but are we erasing injuries for every other worldie who also suffered from bad misfortune?

Because just saying “Lindros gets a perfectly healthy and complete long career but nobody else does in this comp” isn’t exactly apples to apples.

Basically the question is asking what Lindros's potential would've been in a vacuum if he had a relatively healthy career. If you want you could do the same for guys like Forsberg, Bure, Kariya etc. and compare them all but the thread's more Lindros focused

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

I'd say top 50 player of all time. But in the new NHL he wouldn't last, he was too slow.