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For the Flyers, Oskar Lindblom might finally be a prospect worth waiting for

For too long, the Flyers were excessively impatient with good young players. If Lindblom pans out, it would be a nice break from that history.

Left winger Oskar Lindblom brings the puck up ice during a drill in the Flyers development camp.
Left winger Oskar Lindblom brings the puck up ice during a drill in the Flyers development camp.Read moreCLEM MURRAY / Staff Photographer

Oskar Lindblom was born in Gavle, Sweden, in August 1996, and by then his earliest hockey hero already had begun giving the Flyers reason to regret their once-chronic impatience.

Two months earlier, Peter Forsberg had been skating along the slushy ice at Miami Arena, holding the Stanley Cup above his head, celebrating the Colorado Avalanche's four-game sweep of the Florida Panthers. After the Flyers had drafted him in 1991, Forsberg had been unwilling to come to the United States and join them in 1992—he believed he needed to mature physically before entering the NHL—and they were unwilling to wait for him. So they included him in the horde of players they traded to acquire Eric Lindros.

Forsberg stayed in Sweden until 1994, when he debuted in the NHL, and over his 12 years in the league he won two Cups, a scoring title, the Hart Trophy, and the everlasting devotion of a kid from his home country. Nicklas Backstrom, Henrik Zetterberg, the Sedin twins—Lindblom has admired them all, but not as much as he did Forsberg.

"He's the biggest," Lindblom said last week at the Flyers' development camp.

No one would suggest that Lindblom, a left wing whom the Flyers selected in the fifth round of the 2014 draft and who could crack their top two lines this season, is a comparable talent to Forsberg. Truth be told, there hasn't been a player on the Flyers' roster in years, no matter his background or accomplishments, who wouldn't stand in Forsberg's shade, let alone a near-21-year-old who has yet to play a game in the NHL. But drawing the connection between the two of them does provide a useful indication of how the Flyers' thinking and approach to team-building has changed under general manager Ron Hextall.

In retrospect, Forsberg's inclusion in the Lindros deal was an example of a mistake the Flyers frequently made throughout their history: In trying to win another Stanley Cup—and, in this case, also fill the new arena they were planning to unveil in the mid-1990s—they were hasty in the measures they took to achieve that goal. As Russ Farwell, who was the Flyers' GM when they pulled off the Lindros trade, said in a recent interview, "We knew what Forsberg was." But instead of allowing Forsberg time to develop, all the while recognizing that they would likely have a nascent superstar once he arrived, they decided that they needed a star now. So they pursued Lindros.

Notice the two words at the beginning of that previous paragraph: In retrospect. Of course the Flyers could justify the pursuit of Lindros at the time. He was the next Great One, and if he hadn't been so injury- and drama-riddled, everything might have worked out as everyone believed it would. But that's the thing about the sorts of moves that the Flyers routinely used to make: They were always justifiable in the moment. The true and oft-foreseeable cost came later. Hextall is, if nothing else, mindful of the long term, particularly when it's self-evident in situations such as Lindblom's.

He was 17 when they drafted him. They had relatively little invested in him because he was a fifth-round pick. They could afford to wait and hope, which Hextall, by all accounts and appearances, seems inclined to do anyway. Now that Lindblom is bigger and stronger (6-foot-2 and closing in on 200 pounds), now that he is the reigning Swedish Hockey League forward of the year (he had 22 goals and 47 points in 52 games for Brynas IF), they may have mined a jewel.

"Sometimes those guys who go in the fifth round, sixth round, there's a lot less focus," Hextall said. "Oskar's a great example, right? We picked Oskar. He goes back to Europe. Nobody even talks about him. What does he do? He just gets better and better and better. But there also wasn't a spotlight on him.

"Quite frankly, I wish all our kids could go away and nobody talk about them. And all of a sudden, they show up three months later, and we're like, 'Wow, this kid's a pretty good player.' But (with) social media and everything else nowadays, you can't hide them. Some of these kids, we put way too much pressure on at a young age. Oskar went away. No one knew who the hell he was, fifth-round pick, just keeps getting better and better. And all of a sudden he's the SHL forward of the year."

For the Flyers, it would be a pretty stark break from the past if Lindblom were to develop into an important member of their young core. If you're looking to excuse the Flyers for their once-chronic impatience, you could make a persuasive, and ironic, argument that they didn't have all that many prospects worth waiting for anyway. Review their draft history since the late 1980s, and you'll struggle to find low-round picks who became contributors, never mind franchise fixtures. Contrast that track record with, say, the Detroit Red Wings, who mastered the art: Tomas Holmstrom in the 10th round (1994), Pavel Datsyuk in the fifth round (1998), Zetterberg in the seventh round (1999), Johan Franzen in the third round (2004), just to name a few. An organization needs that good scouting, that good fortune, that good sense to recognize that certain players, sometimes even the long shots, require only a little time.

"It's just a couple of years to be ready to come over here," Lindblom said. "You feel you're not ready, you're not going to go over. Early? That's just stupid."