Instead of C, Lindros Gets A’s

The Philadelphia Flyers set up Eric Lindros to fail.

They already hadripped the captain’s “C” off his uniform and air-brushed it out of his picture on their playoff media guide, so all that remained was to throw him to the wolves Wednesday and grin behind their hands when he embarrassed himself.

As much as the Flyers might have wanted him to flop so they could say he’s an albatross and a distraction, that they had reached the Eastern Conference finals without him and didn’t need him to carry them to the Stanley Cup finals, Lindros refused to cooperate.

He came remarkably close to making fools of his critics, the biggest of whom sat in the general manager’s suite and looked a lot like Bob Clarke. In his first game since two concussions launched his world into physical and emotional turbulence, Lindros scored a goal and missed another by a few tenths of a second, playing with growing assurance on a team that was losing its collective cool.

The Flyers couldn’t pin their 2-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Lindros, who generated some offense and stood up to physical challenges. In a bizarre turn of events in an increasingly bizarre season, the Flyers’ chances of winning tonight and salvaging a series they once led, 3-1, depend on Lindros.

After spending so much time belittling him, they now need him to come up big.

How sweet.

Lindros resisted gloating over his return. He joked about forgetting what had been said during a timeout, “but that’s not from any concussion,” and he spoke of the team’s needs, not his.

“It felt good to play hockey again,” he said. “This is a special time of year. We have to make sure we make it special [tonight] after the game in the dressing room.”

Said Craig Ramsay, the Flyers’ interim coach: “Eric was ready to play. He has put in a lot of time to get himself ready, a lot of hard work off the ice to get the OK to play, and it paid off.”

It paid off in 19 shifts and 14 minutes 47 seconds of ice time, short of his normal ration but a lot after so long a layoff, and a team-leading three shots in a sorry 13-shot effort. Lindros won six of nine faceoffs for a game-high 66% success rate and had an even plus/minus rating after being on the ice for one Flyer goal--his own--and one against, by Alexander Mogilny.

Ramsay needed Lindros enough to send him out for the last seconds of the second period, when he beat New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur a wink after time had expired, and for the last desperate minute of the game, when he bounced off a hit from Scott Stevens to come out of the corner and whip a quick shot past Brodeur with 30.1 seconds left.

He was forceful. He was energetic. He’s the Flyers’ best hope for avoiding a total collapse.

“As the game went on, I felt more and more comfortable out there,” he said. “There’s still a lot of things to work on, but I’m sure things will be better in the seventh game. I’m confident of that.”

It’s almost too good to be true, a movie script that would be panned by critics as too implausible.

Player hailed as the ultimate power forward and the torchbearer for the post-Wayne Gretzky NHL suffers several head injuries, the extent of which are murky because he didn’t report all his symptoms. Doctors’ diagnoses vary from a big boo-boo to a Grade 2 concussion. He claims his medical problems were mistreated by the team’s medical staff, spurring Clarke to order him to apologize. Doctors say he’s probably done for the season, but he returns after a 2 1/2-month absence to give a courageous effort.

And the same teammates who seemingly forgot him, true to an odd but immutable hockey tradition, praised him.

“I think Eric played really well,” former linemate John LeClair said. “He’s definitely going to help us and I thought he played great.”

Keith Primeau, who set up Lindros’ goal, chimed in on the same note. “He played great for us,” Primeau said. “He was strong and his conditioning looked good and he scored a big goal there and gave us a chance. I think he’s going to be a force for us in Game 7.”

Even critics who insisted he shouldn’t have played were won over.

Former King coach Barry Melrose, an ESPN analyst, said the Flyers should have let Lindros sit while they played the lineup that carried them past Buffalo and Pittsburgh. Melrose changed his mind after seeing Lindros.

“I thought Eric played well after a tentative start,” Melrose said. “I can’t believe the guy missed 2 1/2 months. The game dictated how much he played--being down and having no offensive spark at all meant he played a lot.

“It’s a unique situation with Eric in Philadelphia. He’s the captain, and they take that away from him, and he rips the very trainers that now, if he’s cut, have to help him.

“I don’t think they can beat Jersey unless Eric Lindros is effective.”

Love him or hate him, Lindros has become the main character in a story so riveting that if it were a novel, you’d flip ahead to read the end. It’s deliciously perfect that he can write his own conclusion.