Lindros, Flyers Look Toward Future

May 2, 1998 / 11:44 PM EDT / CBS/AP

His eyes were vacant. Eric Lindros didn't seem to blink as he tried, and failed, to explain what went wrong with the Philadelphia Flyers this season.

"It will be easier to sum up in a couple of days when it sinks in," he said after the Buffalo Sabres upset one of last year's Stanley Cup finalists in five games.

"Right now, guys are just absorbing the shock," Lindros said.

Explaining what went wrong with the Flyers will be a lot easier than fixing it, since the team's main problems seem to revolve around intangibles like chemistry and character.

General manager Bob Clarke surely saw those problems at the end of last season, when the Flyers worked hard to get to the finals, then collapsed in a four-game sweep to Detroit.

Afterwards, several key players, including Lindros, helped convince Clarke that coach Terry Murray, whose aloof personality had led to locker room resentment, had to go.

Knowing it's easier to switch coaches than make wholesale changes on a team that seemed close to winning it all, Clarke fired Murray, replacing him with novice head coach Wayne Cashman.

Then Clarke went out and tried to shore up two areas he thought were deficient, paying top dollar for free agents Luke Richardson, a tough defensive defenseman, and Chris Gratton, a big, young forward with above-average offensive potential.

None of the moves panned out.

Cashman couldn't find a cure for the Flyers' inconsistency and was fired March 9, replaced by veteran Roger Neilson.

Richardson had such a disappointing season that his ice time dropped off dramatically as the year went on. Gratton, who scored eight fewer goals than he did a year ago with Tampa Bay, never seemed to mesh with his new team.

Gratton's lackluster play highlighted the loss of Mikael Renberg, whom Clarke sent to the Lightning as part of the deal for Gratton.

Renberg had teamed up with Eric Lindros and John LeClair to form the Legion of Doom line that was feared around the NHL the previous two seasons.

Clarke tabbed Dainius Zubrus, who had scored eight goals and 33 points as an 18-year-old rookie last year, for the Lindros line, but the trio never clicked. In fact, the Flyers searched all season for the right complement for Lindros and LeClair.

Still not happy with his team, Clarke made several other moves, trading defenseman Janne Niinimaa, a rookie of the year candidate last year, and acquiring Alexandre Daigle from Ottawa and Dave Babych and Mike Sillinger from Vancouver.

Through all the change or maybe because of it the Flyers never seemed to find an identity, and that translated into erratic performances on the ice.

"You've got to be able to depend on the same team showing up every night," forward Shjon Podein said. "Last year, we plaed a lot hungrier."

Much of the blame for what went wrong with the Flyers will go to Clarke and Lindros, long touted as hockey's next dominating superstar.

It's been six seasons since Philadelphia gutted its franchise to acquire Lindros, who signed a contract extension during the season that will pay him $8.5 million next year.

While he has the talent to be the game's most dominant player, he hasn't shown the leadership skills that separate the greatest from the great.

First as captain of the Canadian Olympic team, which had a disappointing fourth-place finish in Japan, then as captain of the Flyers, Lindros failed to rally his teammates around him.

"I don't know, in a couple of days it may be easier to talk about," said Lindros, shaking his head at the end of a disappointing winter and the beginning of what will likely be a summer of soul-searching.