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Wednesday, January 17, 2001
Flyers want something in return
Associated Press
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NEW YORK -- Eric Lindros' desire to play only in Toronto has
"tied the hands" of both the Philadelphia Flyers and the Maple
Leafs, according to his main adversary, Flyers general manager Bob Clarke.
Clarke would like to deal the 27-year-old unsigned free agent,
but Lindros has refused to talk to any other team about a contract.
And, so far, Maple Leafs GM Pat Quinn has not come up with enough
to get a trade worked out with Philadelphia.
"I'm not going to make Toronto better without helping our own
club," Clarke said Tuesday before the Flyers played the New York
Rangers. "All it's done is really tie our hands totally, and I
think it's pretty much tied Pat's, too."
The Leafs would like to be protected if Lindros, who has
sustained six career concussions, is not able to play. The center
turned down an $8.5 million qualifying offer from the Flyers last
summer.
"We're not going to trade him unless we get some players in
return," Clarke said. "There may be future draft picks based on
how much he plays and there may be draft picks from our club that
go back to them if he doesn't play or gets hurt right away with a
concussion.
"There's ways of structuring a deal that offer some safety net
for the other team."
Flyers chairman Ed Snider told Clarke last week to stop
negotiating with Toronto, saying the Maple Leafs "offered us
absolutely nothing."
"Mr. Snider doesn't want to trade him to Toronto," Clarke
said.
Despite reports Tuesday, Clarke has not spoken with Toronto
since then and considers a deal with the Leafs to be a dead issue.
"As far as I'm concerned, it is," he said. "If Pat calls me,
then certainly I'll talk. I think Pat knows how Mr. Snider feels.
But Mr. Snider could say, 'No, you're not.' He's my boss, and if he
says, 'No, you're not trading him to Toronto,' I'll live with
that."
Clarke is quizzical about Lindros' relationship with the Maple
Leafs.
"The last time I talked to Pat, I said, 'From our side we're a
little suspicious. Eric said he wouldn't play in Philadelphia in
June but he never said it was only Toronto,' " Clarke said. "All
of a sudden December comes along and Lindros says, 'I'll only play
in Toronto.'
"'I said, 'If you were sitting in my shoes, you'd want to know
what the hell was going on. Why did this come out of the blue?' I
know Pat wouldn't do anything wrong, but there's something that we
can't put our finger on that's going on."
Clarke has not explored bringing in a third team to try and
broker a trade that way.
"I'm not trying to do any three-way," he said. "We said that
we're not interested. If someone from another team is talking to
Pat, we don't know about it. It could end up that maybe that's the
only way to get it done, I don't know.
"If we trade him to another club and they want to flip him to
Toronto, that's fine with us. We're not against that. We don't care
where he ends up playing. We just want to get help for our own
club."
The New York Islanders were reportedly close to deal with the
Flyers, but Clarke denied that they or any club had made a
satisfactory offer.
"Enough people have called for me to think that we could make a
deal if Eric would play with whoever got him," Clarke said.
Clarke and New York Rangers GM Glen Sather on Tuesday said they
had not spoken to each other in quite a while. According to Clarke,
Sather would like to talk to Lindros before discussing trade
possibilities with the Flyers.
"Dallas and a couple of other clubs have had the same reaction,
but he keeps telling them that he wants to try and end up in
Toronto," Clarke said.
Lindros was cleared to resume playing in November, nearly six
months after a check by New Jersey's Scott Stevens left him with
his sixth concussion in just over two years. He had just returned
after a 2½-month absence because of postconcussion syndrome.
But Lindros has vowed not to return to the Flyers because of a
contentious relationship with Clarke. It reached a point last
season where the two men didn't speak for months.
The boiling point came after Lindros criticized the team's
medical staff for failing to diagnose his second concussion of the
season on March 4.
Clarke then stripped Lindros of his captaincy and the star was
ostracized from the team until he returned for Games 6 and 7 of the
Eastern Conference finals against New Jersey.
Lindros came to Philadelphia in 1992 after a trade with
Quebec that included six players, two first-round draft choices and
$15 million.
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