cmw00
09-03-2003, 02:56 PM
So that explains his performance or lack there of!
8 Who Need to be Great
By Mark Brender, Senior Writer
September 2, 2003
No. 88 headlines list of players who MUST step up
By early September the ache of failure has dulled. Training camp excitement builds. It’s a fine time of year for optimism and the best time of year to believe Eric Lindros is ready to turn things around.
“There has been all kinds of players who have gone through this in their career,” says New York Rangers coach-GM Glen Sather, on the recent struggles of his No. 1 center. “I expect he’s going to have a helluva year.”
Sather expects it will start with a change of stick. The old-time coach blames the high-tech one-piece graphite stick Lindros used last season for taking away his puckhandling skills.
This year, Sather says, Lindros will use a more traditional two-piece model said by players to be much more pass- and stick-skill friendly.
“I was on him all year to change sticks,” Sather says. “It hurt his confidence because he wasn’t handling the puck as well as he normally does. “A guy with his skill level, you’ve got to be able to handle the puck. And he seemed to lose it a lot. So he has switched sticks this summer and he has worked his ass off to get back to where he should be.” Sather Positive
Not surprisingly, Sather doesn’t believe last season is indicative of where Lindros is headed any more than his superstar days are indicative of what he could become. He doesn’t see anything standing in the way of Lindros reclaiming his place among the NHL’s finest players, even after a season spent, on more nights than not, far below that level.
Of course, after reportedly exploring trade options with Washington for Jaromir Jagr this summer, the GM can’t afford not to believe in his most crucial superstar reclamation project. He and the Rangers are the ones who need Lindros to be great again. It’s in there, somewhere. The kind of ability Lindros possesses just doesn’t fall off overnight and blow away, like leaves from a tree. Five years ago, if someone would have said No. 88 would play 81 games and score just 19 goals as he did last season, nobody would have believed it.
His health problems, judging by his games played, appear to be behind him. He hasn’t been sidelined for more than a few contests due to injury in his two seasons in New York. Coming off an all-systems-go, 36-goal, 72-point year in 2001-02, the downward slide to 53 points in 2002-03 was a major disappointment, especially as Lindros talked last summer about how he felt the fun was returning to the game for him.
Says Sather: “He didn’t have the kind of season we expected from him.” In fairness, not many Rangers did. Alexei Kovalev, brilliant in Pittsburgh, bombed after his trade to New York. Anson Carter’s numbers went down, too. In his first year as a Ranger, Bobby Holik was mediocre at best. Everyone deserves to be a target when the team hasn’t made the playoffs in six years, yet it’s Lindros who will be scrutinized most.
There are no shortage of theories for his slide: he won’t go into traffic, isn’t willing to take a hit. He has stopped moving his feet and pressuring the puck. He’s too wound up. He has to learn to relax, not put so much pressure on himself. Whatever Lindros thinks about the matter, he’s not saying.
Big No. 88 has stayed away from the spotlight this off-season, content to put in his miles on the highway between Toronto and his off-season retreat in Muskoka cottage country. Out of sight he was, but never out of mind. His story is too compelling to be left alone.
Always has been.
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s why, in response to an interview request for this article, he returned the phone call on a late summer afternoon, polite and cordial as ever, but as brief and guarded as he has ever been.
“I’m just going to keep this short and sweet,” he says. “I’ve worked hard this summer, I’m ready to go and I’m just going to go out and play, and that’s all I have to comment on it.”
Physically Ready
He’s 30 now. This will be his 11th NHL season, not including the one he took off in 2000-01 while recovering from a concussion and awaiting a trade out of Philadelphia. Sather says Lindros trained three times a week in Toronto and has been skating almost the entire summer. The Rangers trainer visited him. In Sather’s eyes, everything Lindros could do to be prepared from a physical standpoint he has already done. As for the mental preparation, being ready to play and have fun and be engaged in the game, well, that’s the gist of the issue here, isn’t it?
Sather says he has talked with Lindros “a great deal about it, a great deal.” Asked to elaborate, Sather said: “I don’t think the communication I have with the players is for the public. They don’t need to know everything that goes on inside the team. There’s enough pressure on these guys.” Lindros chief among them, as surely he knows all too well.
But who knows maybe he will get it together this season....
8 Who Need to be Great
By Mark Brender, Senior Writer
September 2, 2003
No. 88 headlines list of players who MUST step up
By early September the ache of failure has dulled. Training camp excitement builds. It’s a fine time of year for optimism and the best time of year to believe Eric Lindros is ready to turn things around.
“There has been all kinds of players who have gone through this in their career,” says New York Rangers coach-GM Glen Sather, on the recent struggles of his No. 1 center. “I expect he’s going to have a helluva year.”
Sather expects it will start with a change of stick. The old-time coach blames the high-tech one-piece graphite stick Lindros used last season for taking away his puckhandling skills.
This year, Sather says, Lindros will use a more traditional two-piece model said by players to be much more pass- and stick-skill friendly.
“I was on him all year to change sticks,” Sather says. “It hurt his confidence because he wasn’t handling the puck as well as he normally does. “A guy with his skill level, you’ve got to be able to handle the puck. And he seemed to lose it a lot. So he has switched sticks this summer and he has worked his ass off to get back to where he should be.” Sather Positive
Not surprisingly, Sather doesn’t believe last season is indicative of where Lindros is headed any more than his superstar days are indicative of what he could become. He doesn’t see anything standing in the way of Lindros reclaiming his place among the NHL’s finest players, even after a season spent, on more nights than not, far below that level.
Of course, after reportedly exploring trade options with Washington for Jaromir Jagr this summer, the GM can’t afford not to believe in his most crucial superstar reclamation project. He and the Rangers are the ones who need Lindros to be great again. It’s in there, somewhere. The kind of ability Lindros possesses just doesn’t fall off overnight and blow away, like leaves from a tree. Five years ago, if someone would have said No. 88 would play 81 games and score just 19 goals as he did last season, nobody would have believed it.
His health problems, judging by his games played, appear to be behind him. He hasn’t been sidelined for more than a few contests due to injury in his two seasons in New York. Coming off an all-systems-go, 36-goal, 72-point year in 2001-02, the downward slide to 53 points in 2002-03 was a major disappointment, especially as Lindros talked last summer about how he felt the fun was returning to the game for him.
Says Sather: “He didn’t have the kind of season we expected from him.” In fairness, not many Rangers did. Alexei Kovalev, brilliant in Pittsburgh, bombed after his trade to New York. Anson Carter’s numbers went down, too. In his first year as a Ranger, Bobby Holik was mediocre at best. Everyone deserves to be a target when the team hasn’t made the playoffs in six years, yet it’s Lindros who will be scrutinized most.
There are no shortage of theories for his slide: he won’t go into traffic, isn’t willing to take a hit. He has stopped moving his feet and pressuring the puck. He’s too wound up. He has to learn to relax, not put so much pressure on himself. Whatever Lindros thinks about the matter, he’s not saying.
Big No. 88 has stayed away from the spotlight this off-season, content to put in his miles on the highway between Toronto and his off-season retreat in Muskoka cottage country. Out of sight he was, but never out of mind. His story is too compelling to be left alone.
Always has been.
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s why, in response to an interview request for this article, he returned the phone call on a late summer afternoon, polite and cordial as ever, but as brief and guarded as he has ever been.
“I’m just going to keep this short and sweet,” he says. “I’ve worked hard this summer, I’m ready to go and I’m just going to go out and play, and that’s all I have to comment on it.”
Physically Ready
He’s 30 now. This will be his 11th NHL season, not including the one he took off in 2000-01 while recovering from a concussion and awaiting a trade out of Philadelphia. Sather says Lindros trained three times a week in Toronto and has been skating almost the entire summer. The Rangers trainer visited him. In Sather’s eyes, everything Lindros could do to be prepared from a physical standpoint he has already done. As for the mental preparation, being ready to play and have fun and be engaged in the game, well, that’s the gist of the issue here, isn’t it?
Sather says he has talked with Lindros “a great deal about it, a great deal.” Asked to elaborate, Sather said: “I don’t think the communication I have with the players is for the public. They don’t need to know everything that goes on inside the team. There’s enough pressure on these guys.” Lindros chief among them, as surely he knows all too well.
But who knows maybe he will get it together this season....