Mighty Duck Hires That Aren’t Goofy

Right away, you could sense that the second official news conference in Mighty Ducks’ history was going to be an improvement over the first.

On the dais was Jack Ferreira, former general manager of the Minnesota North Stars and San Jose Sharks.

On the speaker phone was Pierre Gauthier, former scouting director of the Quebec Nordiques.

Missing, and presumed to be scaring little children a few blocks away, were Mickey, Goofy, Pluto and Pinocchio.

For 90 minutes Tuesday, talk about Ducks finally gave way to talk about pucks--and rumors of a hockey front office in Anaheim, after weeks of finger-tapping, became reality. Reason for the delay? Disney, wanting to hire a general manager, was apparently unable to decide between Ferreira, the experienced expansion architect, and Gauthier, the whiz kid behind the Quebec wonder drafts of the last four years.

Solution?

Disney hired them both.

For the record, Ferreira will carry the title of general manager, with Gauthier receiving assistant status. But, really, their initial assignments will be equal but separate. Ferreira knows the NHL--”I have a file on every player currently under contract,” he says--so he will coordinate the Ducks’ expansion draft. Gauthier, comber of rinks from Oshawa to Sault Ste. Marie, is an acknowledged expert on international amateur talent.

Put them together, turn them loose and the Ducks are “in the best possible shape we could be at this point in time,” team president Tony Tavares believes.

Ferreira, 48, has been through the ground-up process twice before. In 1972, he was head scout for the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Assn., starting up not only an expansion team but an expansion league. Two decades later, he was building from scratch again in San Jose, assembling a roster that went 17-58-5 in its inaugural tour of the NHL--which doesn’t sound like much until you note the Sharks are 10-61-2 this season, without Ferreira.

“We had 17 wins or something,” Ferreira said, “but we had lost (17) games by one goal. So I knew we were competitive. I mean, I wasn’t satisfied. I knew that over the summer, we had to upgrade the veterans, but, um, I didn’t get a chance to do that.”

Ferreira was naive. He thought if he took care of the Sharks on the ice, the rest would take care of itself. He failed to account for the sharks in the front office, who blindsided him right after last June’s amateur draft and cast him out of the organization with two years remaining on his contract.

There were reports of an ego-clash with Sharks president Art Savage. There were rumors of a well-armed Brutus within the ranks.

For his part, Ferreira tactfully pleads ignorance. “I really don’t know what happened,” he claims. “It’s never been explained to me.”

Ferreira saw his old powers usurped by a clumsy three-headed monster known derisively in the Bay Area as “The Kingston Trio”--Coach George Kingston, director of player personnel Chuck Grillo and director of hockey operations Dean Lombardi--and has since watched his old team regress to a league-least 22 points.

Nine months later, the view from Anaheim has to be satisfying.

“I just have no comment at all,” Ferreira said, shaking his head. “It’s all behind me. I wish the players well.”

The new Duck general manager took a few lessons down the coast with him.

One, surround yourself with allies. Gauthier, long a familiar face on the scouting trail, qualifies.

“We’ve done a lot of traveling together the last 12 years,” Ferreira said. “Some good times, and some really hard travel . . . We’ve been (to Russia) about seven or eight times. Some of the hotels where we had to stay in, guys would literally take showers with their shoes on, because the floors were so dirty.”

Two, when building for the future, don’t forget about the past. At San Jose, Ferreira learned young talent is easily led astray without a few veterans on hand to serve as tour guides.

“You really can’t expect young players to carry you,” Ferreira said. “There were times last year with the Sharks when we would have seven or eight rookies in the lineup. And that takes a toll. It’s OK on a three-, four-, five-game basis. But over an 84-game schedule, everything seeks its own level. . . .

“You can certainly learn from what Tampa Bay did this year. They went with veteran players, more so than the Ottawa franchise, to help bring the kids along. Then, toward the end of the season, after they’ve had some success, they traded some veterans, like a Rob Ramage, for some younger players.

“I think that’s probably the way to go.”

Tampa Bay has won 21 games this season. Excluding the 1967-68 season, when the NHL doubled in size and half the league was in its first year, the record for most victories by an expansion team is 25, set by the 1972-73 Atlanta Flames.

Ferreira has sought out advice from the man who assembled that team, Cliff Fletcher, as well as Bill Torrey, former general manager of the New York Islanders--12-game winners in 1972-73, Stanley Cup winners by 1979-80.

“That’s probably the model expansion team,” Ferreira said. “The Islanders won four Stanley Cups.

“And, to some extent, Edmonton is a model, too. They won five Cups and although they came over from the WHA, they came with only four players.”

Of course, one of them was named Wayne Gretzky.

“That helps,” Ferreira had to concede.

Ferreira and Gauthier will have to go it alone, with any assist Michael Eisner’s deep pockets can provide. Tuesday, Tavares joked that Eisner had already assembled a get-list: “Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman and Teemu Selanne. Michael said those would be good players to get the first year.”

Ferreira nodded and laughed and talked about catching the Wednesday red-eye back to Montreal. There, he would meet Gauthier for a weeklong inspection tour of the top amateur talent in Canada.

There, and not in the new Sharper Image catalogue, they will find the future Mighty Ducks of the world. It won’t be a pretty job. But at least now, at last, Disney has somebody to do it.