WEIGHTY EXPECTATIONS

Eric Lindros sits at his locker, beads of sweat dripping from his nose. A T-shirt clings to his muscles, which have returned to their rock-hard state after a painful comeback from a collapsed lung.

He is out of breath but has plenty to say once he catches it.

Lindros, the Philadelphia Flyers’ franchise player, is ready for his annual ritual. Each year, he pursues the Stanley Cup with every ounce of his might and gets blamed if the Flyers come up short.

Those who know him--his teammates, his coach, even the general manager he refuses to talk about, Bob Clarke--see it as an unfair burden placed on one of the NHL’s best players who has yet to win the ultimate prize.

Lindros, who has spent all of his adult life trying to live up to the label of superstar, sees it that way, too.

“Oh yeah, one person wins a Stanley Cup. That’s right. Sure,” said Lindros, his sharp words cutting through the music of Nirvana after a grueling practice. “I’m not even getting into that.”

Lindros obviously is growing tired of the expectations he once likened to the weight of a piano, before the Flyers were swept by Detroit in the 1997 Stanley Cup finals. But with Lindros and nine teammates signed only through this season, including longtime linemate John LeClair, these Flyers could be entering their final days.

“I offered them a one-year deal that basically made sure that I was going to play here this year,” said Lindros, healthy again after missing the Flyers’ playoff series last season with the collapsed lung. “As far as anything else above and beyond that, I want to see the direction that the team goes in. I want to see what happens this year.”

Ominous words, considering Lindros is the man around whom the Flyers have built their Stanley Cup hopes for the better part of a decade.

“When I was offered around the league a few years ago, yeah, I thought about what it would be like playing in different cities,” Lindros said. “If they want to make a trade now, if they want to move me, they move me. So I’m not going to worry about it.”

The ruthless style that is unmistakably Lindros’--the bursts of speed, the crushing body checks, the look in his eyes that scouts first saw when he was a teenager--does him little good in the arena of public opinion.

“I don’t think I’ve seen that in all my travels, the way the burden is being put solely on the lap of Eric,” goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck said. “He’s a great team guy, a great team leader. Anybody who says anything else doesn’t really know him.”

The 26-year-old Lindros signed a one-year contract for this season that will pay him $8.5 million plus incentives. He promised to do so last summer, and lived up to it.

“I’ve made it clear through my contract stance that I don’t have intentions of moving,” Lindros said.

But Clarke, the fiery GM who was captain of the Flyers’ last Stanley Cup championship team in 1975, said he was disappointed when Lindros wouldn’t sign a long-term deal.

“It would be better for the security of the club, I think--the team, the players, everybody,” Clarke said. “We asked if they were interested, and they said they were not interested in the long-term. So that was fine.”

Clarke rankled Lindros last summer when he proclaimed that if Lindros wanted to be the highest-paid player in hockey, it was time for him to play that way.

Lindros, Clarke and team chairman Ed Snider had a private meeting last month at the team’s training camp in Peterborough, Ontario. No one will divulge what happened.

“To say you’re a failure because you don’t win the Cup is probably being a little harsh,” said Clarke, who nonetheless stands by last summer’s ultimatum.

Lindros has been at the center of maelstroms like this ever since being picked No. 1 in the 1991 draft by Quebec. He balked at playing for the Nordiques and was traded to the Flyers for six players, two draft picks and $15 million. Snider, who promised an imminent parade down Broad Street, hired Clarke two years later.

Last season, the Flyers were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round for the second straight year, losing to Toronto. They lost without Lindros, who had the biggest health scare of his life when teammate Keith Jones found him languishing in the bathtub of their Nashville hotel room early on the morning of April 2.

Lindros was checked or fell on his stick in a game against the Predators, puncturing his lung. With an incredible threshold for pain, Lindros left the rink believing he was just bruised.

When Jones found him soaking in the bathtub, he knew the captain was in trouble. Six pints of blood had seeped into the lung, but Lindros believes he would have been healthy enough to play in the second round.

“It’s a bridge we didn’t cross,” Lindros said.

Once again, Lindros is expected to lead the charge.