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Cup's Spotlight Is on Lindros

If a torch is to be passed when the Stanley Cup finals start tonight in Philadelphia, Eric Lindros has not seen it.

"I don't even want to talk about this torch," he said after being peppered with questions at a news conference yesterday. "For the league to take off in a better, bigger way, everybody needs to associate with a wider variety of people. Geez."

Okay, no torch. But even without the mawkish metaphors, Lindros knows that when the Philadelphia Flyers meet the Detroit Red Wings tonight at CoreStates Center, he will be the one skating in the brightest spotlight.

The Penguins' Mario Lemieux has retired. New York Rangers Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier have been eliminated, mostly due to Lindros's combination of tough and touch in the Eastern Conference finals.

And while the Red Wings have their own stars—Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov and Coach Scotty Bowman—they are luminaries only among their NHL peers.

Lindros, however, is a sports star. Casual fans know what he looks like, which is more than just about anyone else in this series can say. This is not a finals for the faint of heart. This is a series about hockey—rough hockey. Lindros may be the big name, but he is not the only big man in the dressing room.

"It's important for us to establish a physical game," Flyers winger John LeClair said. "It's going to be a physical series."

Teammate Trent Klatt agreed, talking yesterday about "taking the body." While the Flyers are usually described as hulking, the Red Wings, as Flyers goaltender Ron Hextall noted, "have good size themselves." They have speed as well, which should test a Philadelphia defense that fell apart on a number of occasions this season.

They also have the Russian Five, perhaps the collective anti-Lindros. Most non-Detroit fans could not pick Igor Larionov, Slava Kozlov, Vladimir Konstantinov or Slava Fetisov out of a crowd, and Fedorov gets more recognition for those goofy Nike commercials than for his 1994 Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player.

It is ironic, then, that last season several of these players were criticized for having too much glitz and not enough grit. This season, they have eradicated that image, instead presenting themselves as a solid, two-way unit. They have also shown their willingness to share; more of the Red Wings' lineup has become involved in the team's scoring.

In fact, yesterday Larionov chided a reporter who asked about the Russian Five possibly leading Detroit to its first Stanley Cup in 42 years, the longest drought in the NHL.

"I don't like [the name]," he said. "This is one team—we all represent the Detroit Red Wings."

The Flyers' scoring may be more concentrated, with the Legion of Doom line intact again. Eighteen-year-old Dainius Zubrus had been playing with Lindros and LeClair through much of the Eastern Conference finals, but now Mikael Renberg is expected to rejoin the group.

Detroit's defensive corps is skilled but not very big, and it may have problems keeping the trio's members away from their favorite spots in front of the net. Rod Brind'Amour, who has 10 goals in 15 playoff games, is also expected to be a factor.

So is Hextall, although no one is sure exactly what kind of factor he will turn out to be. So shaky at the end of the regular season that Coach Terry Murray started Garth Snow in net for most of the first two series, Hextall knows he needs to win the Stanley Cup to erase the perception that he cannot be counted on in the crunch.

At the opposite end of the rink will crouch Mike Vernon, who has started for the Red Wings throughout the playoffs but who rode the bench for chunks of the regular season. Against the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference finals, Vernon looked spectacular, but pundits are also waiting for him to fail. The difference is that Vernon won the Cup in 1989 with the Calgary Flames, while Hextall went home from the 1987 finals with the most valuable player trophy but no championship ring.

This year, most expect both pieces of hardware to go home with Lindros, torch or no torch.

"I've dreamed about being here, about this situation for a long time, but not just being here, to win it," Lindros said. "I guess you have to have dreams to live dreams, and we have our work cut out for us."