PHILADELPHIA, PA - DECEMBER 31: Eric Lindros #88 of the Philadelphia Flyers leaves the ice after playting against the New York Rangers during the 2012 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic Alumni Game on December 31, 2011 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Ken Campbell of The Hockey News has an article on Eric Lindros that’s a lot like Lindros himself as an NHL player: At times impressive, at times controversial, at times a victim of its own tactics but ultimately compelling.

Here’s the thesis. You’ll get what we mean:

Lindros lives in the knowledge that he was right all along and those in hockey who viewed him as a petulant, selfish and spoiled superstar owe him a big apology. The trail he blazed on players’ rights and concussion awareness that earned him so much derision during his career have become standard procedure for today’s player. There is no difference between what Nathan McKinnon and Max Domi did orchestrating their destinations as junior players than what Lindros did almost 27 years ago when he refused to report to Sault Ste. Marie and ended up in Oshawa. NHL players can thank the likes of Lindros for the no-trade clauses that are standard today. And those who look out for their own health interests rather than keeping quiet and playing can take inspiration from the man who shut himself down and refused to play until he was healthy enough to do so, in spite of the avalanche of opinion against him at the time.

Give the whole thing a read, but here are a few reactions to it:

1. The Hockey News has been banging the “we all owe Lindros an apology” drum for the last five years. While it plays better to say that the hockey world, as a whole, wronged him, the only people who owe Lindros an apology for his post-concussion treatment are the Philadelphia Flyers and their medical staff.

Those are the people who ignored, either ignorantly or willfully, Lindros’s symptoms and chose to throw over-the-counter headache medicine at the problem. It was Bobby Clarke who used to challenge his manhood over being out of the lineup, who asked him what kind of player he was where Jeremy Roenick could come back from a shattered jaw but Lindros would miss so much time with a concussion.

Was it a different time? Of course. Do we know much more now about concussions than we did then? Of course, which is why the game is safer and more antiseptic than when Lindros played. But none of that exonerates the Flyers. They treated him like a circus attraction.

And as Campbell writes, Lindros was one of the first star players who looked out for his own health when he was recovering, and stepped up with funding for concussion studies after his playing days. He deserves many, many accolades for that.

2. Would Lindros have taken part in the concussion lawsuit were it not for the Hall of Fame spot it would likely cost him?

I don’t know. He seems well-off, while others in the suit clearly need the money. But if there’s one guy who can make the case that concussion malpractice and misguidance put him at risk, at least on a team level, it’s Lindros, right?

3. All that said, there’s a glaring omission in Campbell’s piece, and most articles that laud Lindros as a victim of hockey’s head-hunting culture: The way he played the game.

The Scott Stevens hit, which Campbell said “would have earned him a long suspension in today’s NHL?” Lindros skates in the middle of the ice, head down, in the middle of three defensive players, and tries to take them on:

The Darius Kasparaitis hit, one of the first big concussions of his NHL career? Head down:

As Lindros himself once told the NY Times, on that hit: “One of the stupidest mistakes I've ever made was trying to carry the puck with my head down.”

The Jason Doig hit, one of the last concussions Lindros had in the NHL? Head down. And then he tries to fight Doig.

Said Doig, after the game: “He has a history of coming through the neutral zone with his head down.”

That he did. And while it doesn’t fit into the tidy narrative that the NHL did Lindros wrong, or that Lindros’s concussions were a result of an unchecked culture of checking, it’s undeniable that he tried to play in the NHL like he did in junior – a man-child freight train that could physically dominate others – and ended up on his back several times because of it.

At running the risk of victim blaming, Lindros has a certain culpability for the injuries he suffered. No, it’s not an era the NHL is ever going to revisit, thanks to what we know now. But it’s the era he played in, and he knew what hits were being delivered.

Story continues