NEW YORK -- In all honesty, it was a rare moment of Glen Sather sincerity.

Go ahead and rip me, the Rangers president quietly challenged as the Eric Lindros media welcome party was drawing to a close Monday evening. Just remember that for a team so far down on its luck, sometimes longshot gambles aren't the worst of strategies.

	“	Will I be nervous for him? Yeah, maybe the first day. But he might walk out of this building and get hit by a cab and get another concussion. And the sky could fall on him, too. I can't guarantee what's going to happen. ”
		— Glen Sather, Rangers general manager

Example ... No. 88.

"Will I be nervous for him? Yeah, maybe the first day," Sather said. "But he might walk out of this building and get hit by a cab and get another concussion. And the sky could fall on him, too. I can't guarantee what's going to happen."

With those words, Sather had guaranteed two solid young players and one potential bust or boom of a prospect to the Philadelphia Flyers, and perhaps as much as $38 million from that freely flowing Rangers salary source for this gamble named Eric.

The kid who could have, should have been here in 1992; the concussed veteran who has been away from the NHL for 15 months but swears he can play through 2004.

Wagers, anyone?

"Maybe there will be some big hits, but hopefully I'll be on the right side of about 90 percent of them," said Lindros. "But I can't control that. I know how I feel, I know what I want to do on the ice. I feel confident about heading into this situation. The injury part of hockey? I wish there was a little ball we could all look into.

"All I can go on here is the confidence I've gained from the doctors. But based on what they've told me and the tests I've gone through, I feel confident about playing."

This then becomes more a prophesy than a gamble for Sather, the club president with the reputation to protect who seems to have gotten himself into more than he'd bargained for in New York. Perhaps he has his fingers crossed that Lindros can somehow help him find a way out.

"Oh, I just have to keep my head up," said Lindros. "Look, I know people are skeptical because of the concussions. But we're going to win them over."

This heralded trade that took a week to announce, then, becomes less the tale of two cities as it does the story of two legacies. If Eric Lindros is to ever seriously make a grab for the golden ring, it will have to be in New York. If Glen Sather is to ever accomplish something other than all those dusty rings he earned as a coach and general manager in Edmonton it will probably have to be with Lindros leading the renaissance.

"It's taken some time, but I'm happy the day has come," Lindros said. "I'm excited about playing in New York. I realize we have a lot of work to do and in the past couple of years it hasn't been so sunny. But bright days are ahead. There's going to be some clear skies. We're going to get some things organized. We've got a lot of confidence in what Glen wants to get accomplished, and in his vision."

Hmmm. Maybe that's where it gets blurry.

"I can't guarantee anything here," Sather said. "But I know Eric and I admire him and I've known his family for years and I've never had a problem with them."

Problem? Who said anything about a problem?

	“	He hurt this organization. I could care less about him. He's 28. If he's going to continue to let his parents play a part in his life, that's up to him. It didn't work here. Maybe it will work in New York. ”
		— Bob Clarke, Flyers general manager

Well, except for Bob Clarke, that is. He might have mentioned parental problems associated with Lindros a time or a hundred times in the past. In fact, he did so again Monday.

"He hurt this organization," the Flyers president said of Lindros. "I could care less about him. He's 28. If he's going to continue to let his parents play a part in his life, that's up to him. It didn't work here. Maybe it will work in New York."

Considering the understandable expectations underlining this Sather-Lindros blood pact, it better.

As he sat there with a slightly confused smile draped across his face Monday, James Dolan, CEO of Cablevision and still the closest thing to an overseer that MSG's sports sons have, kept repeating, "I don't know much about hockey."

But he does know budgetary and marketing matters, and he's heard something about how good that guy Jaromir Jagr is that Sather supposedly chose not to pursue to the end. So in this new face, Dolan certainly sees not only growth potential, but also an answer to a puzzling postseason question that has hounded this subsidiary sports company for the past four years.

"I would expect now that we should make the playoffs," Dolan said.

Now there's a goal to shoot for.

"As we all know," Mark Messier said, "the last four years have been miserable around here. People were looking at the (new) players and coaching staff that came in here and maybe were expecting things to happen right away. And Glen coming in here with his track record, miracles were expected to happen. But unfortunately in this business it doesn't quite happen like that. It's a lot of hard work, a lot of preparation and a lot of thought. To get ourselves back to respectability is going to take some time.

"But having Eric Lindros, I see from having played with him and against him in all situations, it's a great day for the Rangers organization."

There are those who would predict that Lindros's best days are here now, simply because of all the hits he took in Philadelphia ... and the stiff-arm checks still to come.

"I feel confident about coming back," said Lindros. "I've been seen by every doctor possible. Every i has been dotted and every t crossed. I've been symptom-free for 15 or 16 months now and I think that lends itself to a good comeback. If you look at other players who try to come back, they haven't had that window of opportunity to heal. I was disappointed about not being able to play last year, but at the same time, I can look at the time off as a blessing, and focus on something that I can build from. I'm ready to go."

But when asked if he was finally ready to address all the cutting-edge Clarke comments that questioned his character, questioned his desire and criticized his close ties to his parents, Lindros slipped back into a familiar posture.

He bottled up.

"I only think about my days in Philadelphia as having a lot of fun," Lindros said. "We had a really good group of guys there, I made a lot of friends, and the fan support there is excellent. So I've got nothing to say but good things about Philadelphia. As far as the rest of it, I don't care to get involved with it. I didn't get involved with it last year. I'm looking at this as a new start."

	“	But one thing I had heard a lot then was that they kept saying they wanted Eric to come to play every night. I believe Eric pushed as hard as anybody did every night. He would try to give a hard effort every night. He wouldn't just take certain nights off and things like that. I thought that was kind of an unfair thing to say about him. ”
		— John LeClair, Lindros's former linemate

You can't blame Lindros for being excited. For the past year and a half, he's been living a bachelor's existence in Toronto with a daily agenda of sharpening the senses. Clear-eyed and lean, he looks like he's in the best condition of his career. But working out the body is something Lindros has always been good at. Exorcising past demons is another matter.

"There were certain things that he did in which his view and my view weren't the same, and some things were the same," Lindros' old mate John LeClair told ESPN.com. "But the bottom line was that wasn't my concern. All that stuff was between Eric and the guys up top. I'd listen and talk to him, whatever he wanted to talk about. But when it came right down to it, none of it was my decision or my business.

"But one thing I had heard a lot then was that they kept saying they wanted Eric to come to play every night. I believe Eric pushed as hard as anybody did every night. He would try to give a hard effort every night. He wouldn't just take certain nights off and things like that. I thought that was kind of an unfair thing to say about him."

The Lindros work ethic, coupled with the suspicion that he's coming back to work with an agenda of proving a lot of people wrong, might be why Sather is willing to stake a huge chunk of his own job security on this trade.

Either that, or there really was no other move of significance left to make.

"I'm supporting Glen," said Dolan, who was suspected of pushing Sather into acquiring Lindros, especially after Sather didn't acquire Jagr. But when asked to answer that media charge, Dolan said: "I'd say people have a lot of time on their hands to think up stuff like that.

"I can tell you I've never given Glen any direction in a year at all," said Dolan. "The only thing we've agreed on is that we're going to build a winning franchise and a franchise that's going to win more than one year. That's where he's headed. I think he's doing a great job.

"Glen makes the decisions. He made the decision not to do that and he made the decision to do this. Like I said you've gotta believe in him. He certainly has the track record."

Dust it off. It's still there. Whether Lindros can help him write a few more chapters is something that remains to be seen, and a career question that even Glen Sather isn't speculating an answer for yet.

Rob Parent covers the NHL for the Delaware County (Pa.) Times. He is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.