The Eric Lindros trade was the culmination of a holdout by Eric Lindros from the Quebec Nordiques of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Nordiques selected Lindros in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft with the first overall selection, but Lindros refused to play for them. After holding out from Quebec for a year, the Nordiques agreed to two trades involving Lindros at the onset of the 1992 NHL Entry Draft, one with the Philadelphia Flyers and one with the New York Rangers. An arbitrator ruled in favour of the Flyers on June 30, 1992.
Lindros played for the Flyers until 2001. He was awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's Most Valuable Player in 1995; the Flyers never won the Stanley Cup with Lindros, however, only reaching the Stanley Cup Finals once, in 1997. The Nordiques, who moved to Denver, Colorado, and became the Colorado Avalanche in the summer of 1995, won the Stanley Cup in 1996 and 2001 with contributions from players acquired in the Lindros trade, including Peter Forsberg and Mike Ricci. The Rangers also won the 1994 Stanley Cup with some of the players they had originally offered in exchange for Lindros, including Alexei Kovalev and Mike Richter. Lindros himself, however, retired having never won the Cup.