Even Eric Lindros can't escape the disappointment that surrounds him.

	T O P   N E W S

Lindros, one of the NHL's elite players and the captain of the Philadelphia Flyers, can't break away from the wasteland from which he emerged. That forgotten, barren region, otherwise know as the Land of 1990s Overall No. 1 Draft Picks, has managed to attach some of its indigenous disappointment to Big Eric as well.

Lindros is one of the game's most recognizable stars, a combination of speed, brute power and skill that has made him one of the NHL's most dominating offensive players. But Lindros, perhaps the only overall No. 1 pick this decade with the ability to deliver a Stanley Cup, is known instead for helping deliver one to Colorado.

Lindros forced a trade from Quebec to Philadelphia after being taken first in '91. The players acquired by the Nordiques in that deal helped form the core of the Colorado Avalanche team, which the franchise became when it moved to Denver, that won the Cup in 1996.

WITH A DECADE OF DISAPPOINTING top overall picks almost complete, the team that drafts first this year would do well to select someone that might eventually provide a fraction of Lindros' impact. The final draft of the decade, at Boston's FleetCenter on Saturday, will bring to a close one of the more forgettable 10-year periods of talent evaluation in NHL history.

The decade started badly, and after the one-year hiatus that brought Lindros to the league, got worse. In 1990, Quebec used the top pick on power forward Owen Nolan, a player with size, strength, a wicked wrist shot -- and just 14 goals last season for San Jose, where he was dealt in 1995.

After Lindros, offensively gifted defenseman Roman Hamrlik went first overall to Tampa Bay in 1992. He had one promising season for the Lightning in 1995-96, then began to regress and was traded to Edmonton in 1997.

Alexandre Daigle went first overall in 1993, and the speedy forward for whom the Ottawa Senators predicted stardom has been an even bigger bust than Hamrlik. Daigle managed 26 goals in his best season for the Senators before being traded to Philadelphia in 1998. He's become better known for briefly dating Pamela Anderson than for his draft status.

THE FLORIDA PANTHERS GRABBED big defenseman Ed Jovanovski with the top pick in '94. In keeping with the pattern of his 1990s predecessors, Jovanovski showed flashes of becoming a dominating player in 1995-96. He struggled so badly after that season that the Panthers even tried him at forward before moving him to Vancouver in the Pavel Bure trade last season.

Defenseman Bryan Berard, No. 1 in 1995, has shown potential, but he's already been traded twice since being drafted by Ottawa. Defenseman Chris Phillips and centers Joe Thornton and Vincent Lecavalier, the top choices in '96, '97 and '98, respectively, have also shown promise, but so did most of the other top picks of the '90s.

The disappointing class of top 1990's draft choices is surprising because it followed a decade of outstanding top overall choices. From 1984-89, Mario Lemieux, Wendel Clark, Joe Murphy, Pierre Turgeon, Mike Modano and Mats Sundin were drafted first.

So why did the top overall draft pick become such a sure source of heartbreak during the 1990's? One reason could be the teams doing the drafting. It takes considerable mismanagement for a team to finish last in the league, which now only guarantees the best chance to attain the top pick due to the recent introduction of the draft lottery.

Ottawa and Tampa Bay, who have made six of the top picks this decade, have had more than enough mismanagement to go around the league over the past 10 years. If a team's front office isn't able to make enough sound personnel decisions to keep it out of the NHL cellar, it follows that the team will be less likely to make a successful choice with the top pick in the draft.

BUT THE BIGGEST REASON for all the disappointing top picks could actually be the very methods that teams now employ to make better selections. The scouting of players has reached a saturation point, with teams looking for as much information as possible on a potential draftee. Detailed records on the height, weight, strengths, weaknesses and tendencies of most of the top draft-eligible players are poured over by teams and the league, which rates each prospect in terms of NHL readiness.

And that could be the problem. With such detailed information available, general managers may be making decisions on players based almost solely on the raw data. Intangibles such as personality, heart and leadership that could cause a general manager to draft a player based on a gut feeling are increasingly ignored in favor of raw size and speed.

The draft will always be a game of chance. No amount of scouting will ever be able to flawlessly determine whether a player will become a star, so the judgment of a player's intangible qualities will always be an important tool in drafting successful players.

THEO FLEURY SHOULD ALWAYS SERVE as a reminder to occasionally disregard the stat sheet when drafting players. The 5-foot-6 forward was taken in the eighth round, 166th overall, in the 1987 draft, due of course to his size. He'll go into the Hockey Hall of Fame known for his feistiness, leadership and what should be close to 500 career goals when he retires.

Although there isn't a star of Fleury's caliber that comes out of the late rounds every year, almost every draft this decade has provided constant reminders of the pitfalls of making bad choices with the coveted top selection. Although it's impossible not to make at least a few bad draft picks, messing up with the top pick is costly.

Some of the players selected after Nolan in 1990 were Jaromir Jagr (fifth overall), Keith Primeau (third), Keith Tkachuk (20th) and Martin Brodeur (21st). Alexei Yashin was drafted second behind Hamrlik in '92. Chris Pronger and Paul Kariya were taken after Daigle in '93.

SO IT MAY BE UP TO the Lightning, who went 19-54-9 last season, to try and close out a decade of mostly bad top overall picks with a strong selection. Tampa Bay has the top choice for the second straight year, but trading it is always a possibility. That might not be a bad idea, as the top prospects are Patrik Stefan, who has had two major concussions, Swedish twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin, who want to play on the same team, and Pavel Brendl, who has big-time offensive skills but is suspect defensively.

If Berard, Phillips, Thornton and Lecavalier don't develop after a few seasons like their predecessors from earlier in the decade, teams may have to start reassessing their approach to the draft process.

As the Information Age progresses into the next century and continues to provide teams with unprecedented amounts of information about potential draftees, maybe general managers need to remember that even if they are drafting first, they're still usually picking a 17- or 18-year-old. Perhaps a simple interview with the player should carry more weight in determining what he is made of.

Remember, a generation of short hockey players has grown up watching Fleury.