Buried deep within the Philadelphia Flyers archives for the better part of the last 30 years is a plain, manila file folder. Inside that folder is a hockey historian’s dream. A look inside the epic 1992 Eric Lindros trade:
archives for the better part of the last 30 years is a plain, manila file folder. Unless you’re looking for this one in particular, it’s indistinguishable at a passing glance. Only a keen, focused eye would notice the words, lightly scrawled in pencil across the front. Even fewer would understand the meaning behind those words.
“He lived and breathed the team,” Martha recalled. “It was everything. So he thought, well, I’ll be out in California. It’s time. Jay can run the team. But it’s tough. Jay was being second-guessed all the time. And Jay is one of the brightest people I know. He’s a wonderful, hard-working guy. But how can you step into those shoes?”
“She had said that when Gretzky was , and the NHL wouldn’t draft players that young, she urged my father to do it anyway,” Jay said, alluding to the fact that the NHL’s minimum age to get drafted in 1979 was 19 years old, making Gretzky ineligible. “She said, just go through the legal battle with the league, if that’s what it took. She said she really pushed him, and he wouldn’t go against the league rules to do it.
Perhaps the most unique aspect of the eventual deal is that two Hockey Hall of Fame players who are still in the top-20 in league history in points-per-game, were traded for one another before either had played an NHL game. While other scouts around the league viewed Forsberg’s countryman and junior league linemate Markus Naslund as the better prospect, Hammarstrom figured Forsberg fit more of the Flyers’ mold. He convinced others in the organization of it, too, including longtime scout and former Flyers forward Simon Nolet, who grew just as fond of Forsberg.
The reasons why the Flyers surrendered such a massive package and then went all-out in the ensuing case with an arbitrator to determine whether Lindros would be headed to the Flyers or Rangers are essentially two-fold. First and foremost, they hadn’t made the playoffs in three straight seasons. It was the first time in the history of the more than two-decade-old franchise that they had gone consecutive seasons without qualifying for the postseason.
According to Martha, Ed wasn’t thinking so much about the new building when the trade was being considered. Jay, though, had it in the back of his mind. The $15 million that was part of the trade was not an insignificant sum back then, particularly in the days before the Flyers were owned by cable giant Comcast.
“We try to get in touch with the doctor, and someone said, ‘Your husband is in recovery. Everything is fine.’ … I thought he should be out of recovery by now, so I decide that I’m going to sneak into the recovery room, like I’m nuts. And I hear … this is a man who just had his throat cut open. I hear him saying in a raspy voice, ‘I don’t care who the fuck they are, this deal is going through!’
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