Eric Lindros and John LeClair are years removed from their playing days, but they are still teammates.
The two made that clear Thursday night as they were inducted into the Flyers' Hall of Fame. They didn’t say it, but they didn’t need to. Lindros and LeClair remain fiercely defensive and supportive of one another, nearly 20 years after they dominated in the game of hockey.
LeClair, for instance, still doesn’t understand all the criticism his linemate and friend faced during his tenure in Philadelphia. To LeClair, Lindros always went “above and beyond.” He was one of the greatest players to play the game, LeClair said, one of the greatest he ever played with.
“What hype did he not live up to?” LeClair asked. “I mean, he won a Hart Trophy. He scored 100 points. I never got that. He had the respect of his teammates and carried the Flyers for five years or however many years he was here. How many?”
“Eight,” Lindros answered, and jokingly elbowed his former teammate.
Both laughed.
The two players made such contributions to the Flyers individually that they could have had their own ceremonies — they arguably deserved their own ceremonies. But all things considered, it was only right that the pair be honored together, as they were ahead of the Flyers' 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild.
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A highlight video played to the Foo Fighters' “Times Like These” and “All My Life” showing iconic moments of the two scoring goals and making hits. The crowd rose to its feet as each player was introduced. They were given time, too, to thank the crowd. Lindros called his time here “fantastic.” LeClair thanked fans for their "relentless enthusiasm and passion."
Even former teammates, including the remaining third of the iconic Legion of Doom line Mikael Renberg, took part in the ceremony.
It was an emotional night for the two players, who hadn’t had an occasion to get together and wear suits since Lindros' wedding, as they laughed about with the media ahead of the game.
“It’s a nice time to look back and say thanks and to celebrate that window,” Lindros said. “That’s the nice thing about pro sports. You’re not looking at a real long time period. You’re looking at a very short, condensed, intense moment. Some people are fortunate to stay 20 years in an organization, some people go back and forth.
“When you do have a real strong feeling of feeling things are really rolling, you cherish it.”
And that’s exactly what Thursday was for both former Flyers: a chance to relive the years during which Lindros and LeClair were at their best, and the Flyers dominated, however briefly.
“Eric pushed you so hard,” LeClair recalled. “You wanted to be better because you wanted to be able to keep up. And to be able to play with him, you had to push yourself because he was that good. And he would yell at you in practice — 'Come on, you’ve got to go harder.' Or if we were doing a skating drill, he’d be like, 'Come on, we’ve got to lead.' You try to catch him and he was always leading the pack and always pushing guys that you’ve got to expect more out of yourself.”
Lindros, too, had only fond memories of the player who might not get the same level of attention when it comes to Hall of Fame talk — but deserves it, according to the former Flyers captain.
“When I would get hurt, Johnny really stepped in and scored a lot of goals at big times when it looked like our team didn’t have what we’d say was our normal roster,” Lindros said. “Johnny would really step up, for sure. I think Johnny should be a Hall of Famer. I do. I think if you look at that point in time from '92 to the World Cup. I don’t think there was a better player in the '96 World Cup ... maybe the goaltender, but we don’t count them. '96 World Cup, that’d be it.”
LeClair turned to his right and asked: “Who won that?”
“We got you in Salt Lake,” Lindros replied, without missing a beat.
Of course, Renberg played a big part in the success of both men, and certainly the Legion of Doom. The three were practically inseparable; Lindros and Renberg lived across the street from one another, LeClair lived two blocks away.
To this day, the three are in contact. Bonds like that don’t disappear.
“I think that’s one of the reasons we were successful as a line, we were all pretty close,” LeClair said. “We see Renny (Renberg) once in a while. We still talk with Renny. [Lindros] and I talk a bit.”
Said Lindros, “Mikael Renberg is a huge part of this. Mikael Renberg was a fantastic player in his own right. He had a great shot. He did everything that you could ever ask of a winger or a player on your team. To have him consistently with us and on our line, we can’t say enough about him. One of the fiercest forecheckers you’d ever come across. Very fast. Great hockey sense and a terrific guy to be around.”
But Thursday night was about No. 88 and No. 10, the two Flyers who all but defined hockey in Philadelphia for years. They never saw the honor coming, but knew the only way to see their names unveiled on a banner at the Wells Fargo Center would be to team up, as they had on the ice so many times.
“It caught me off guard,” Lindros said. “But [John and I] got chatting and we said, ‘Let’s go into this together.’”