| | Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia Flyers plan to retain their rights to Eric Lindros, team president and general manager Bob Clarke said Monday, but the team isn't sure where Lindros will play next season.
Clarke, speaking to reporters for the first time since the Flyers were eliminated from the Eastern Conference finals on May 26, said the team will make an $8.5 million qualifying offer to Lindros before July 1 to keep him on the roster. But Clarke didn't rule out a possible trade.
And Clarke made it clear that if Lindros returns to the team in September, his father-agent, Carl, is not welcome, the Bucks County Courier Times reported for Tuesday's editions.
"If he comes back, he can't have his dad calling us," Clarke said. "Every time something happens, his parents get involved - coaches have to be fired, trainers have to be fired, players have to be traded. He just has to be responsible for his own play.
"If he comes back, it's going to be as his own self. We don't want his mom and dad. We've had enough of them."
Although Lindros has suffered six concussions over the past 27 months, and four in the past five months, Clarke believes there are teams who would be interested in acquiring the 27-year-old center if he's made available.
"Some of those concussions were diagnosed over the telephone," Clarke said. "Nobody can really tell you about concussions. There are such a wide variety of medical opinions on them."
Clarke said the Flyers have not yet made attempts to trade Lindros.
"I think we'll call around to see who's interested. We're going to make him the qualifying offer; who knows what happens after that?"
The Flyers also plan to make a decision sometime later this week on a head coach for next season, Clarke said.
Interim head coach Craig Ramsay is the odds-on favorite. The Flyers finished the regular season with a 16-8-1 mark under Ramsay after head coach Roger Neilson was forced to step aside due to bone-marrow cancer. The Flyers made it through two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs and extended the New Jersey Devils to seven games in the conference finals.
"There were few games in the second half of the season where I thought we were outworked," Clarke said. "I thought we were a really good team, like some of our teams of the '70s and '80s, where everyone pulled together, everyone wanted to be part of the team. When you have that, you have a chance to win every year."
Neilson served as a special assistant to Ramsay once he returned on April 10. He has told Clarke he does not want to return to the team in any capacity but head coach.
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