Ducks Get Their Man in Kariya : Hockey: Freshman from University of Maine--described as All-American--fits the bill as fourth pick in NHL entry draft.

The playmaking and the poise of Paul Kariya have kept the Mighty Ducks entranced for months. Even in the final minutes before the expansion team made him its first-ever choice in the NHL entry draft Saturday, their eyes gave them away.

“We had a hunch he was going to go to Anaheim,” said Shawn Walsh, Kariya’s coach at the University of Maine. “The first few picks, Michael Eisner kept looking back over here.”

The Walt Disney Co. chairman seemed as taken with the 18-year-old center, who will become the Ducks’ first home-grown hockey player, as some of the team’s scouts.

Kariya, selected by the Ducks with the No. 4 choice overall at Le Colisee, is a Japanese-Canadian whose personality is best described as All-American. He won the Hobey Baker Award--hockey’s equivalent of the Heisman Trophy--last season as a freshman at Maine, and tacked on an NCAA championship, too. The Mighty Ducks were drafting the first true Disney hockey player, and Kariya was a fit.

“You think about putting a team together, and he’s the type of guy you’d really like to start building a franchise around,” General Manager Jack Ferreira said.

The Ducks drafted 11 players Saturday--six of them Europeans, five of whom are Russian, including Nikolai Tsulygin, their second-round pick. Tsulygin, 18, is a talented but still awkward 6-foot-3 defenseman who probably will play in Europe again next season. He speaks no English but is pleased to be a Mighty Duck.

“He knows it’s a new team formed just this year,” an interpreter said. “He believes this is a company that mostly deals with cartoons but now is starting in hockey as well.”

The coup of the Ducks’ draft, which ended about nine hours after it started, was clearly Kariya.

Word had been out that the Ducks liked Kariya, but with the fourth or fifth pick, depending on a coin toss with Florida, it was not certain they would get the chance to draft him. When Florida won the toss and the right to choose either the No. 4 pick and next year’s No. 1, or the No. 5 pick and next year’s No. 2, the Ducks weren’t sure where they stood.

Alexandre Daigle, a French-speaking player who was the consensus No. 1 prospect, was chosen first by Ottawa. Then the Ducks’ draft table had to wait to see what San Jose, also rumored to like Kariya, would do with the No. 2.

The Sharks traded it to Hartford, and with that announcement, Ferreira became more confident. Hartford took 6-foot-6 defenseman Chris Pronger, and the Ducks figured they had their man.

Tampa Bay was interested in a big physical scorer and took center Chris Gratton third. The Panthers, knowing that they and the Ducks liked different players, gave up No. 4 to pick fifth and secure next year’s No. 1.

“We’re ecstatic about the way things fell,” team President Tony Tavares said. “Until then, the deck was shuffled 17 different ways and there were rumors all over the place. We were prepared to take the best player available.”

Kariya seemed as pleased with the Ducks as they were with him.

“I’m just elated to be part of the organization with Anaheim,” he said. “I’ve been hearing rumors for quite a while. One of them was Anaheim. I’m really happy this rumor came true.”

Kariya, who has jet-black hair and olive skin, is of Japanese and Scottish heritage. His father, Tetsuhiko, was born in a Japanese internment camp in Canada during World War II, something Kariya finds hard to imagine, and something his father and grandparents speak of very seldom.

The son of two teachers, Kariya still must decide whether he will return to Maine next season and if he wants to play for the Canadian Olympic team, which the Ducks are encouraging. Though they believe he is capable of playing in the NHL now after seeing him play alongside NHL players for Team Canada in the World Championships, they do not want to rush him. He seems likely to join the Ducks late next season or for their second year.

Still, he already possesses remarkable poise, and his college coach describes him as “18 going on 28.”

Kariya smiled through the inevitable Duck and Disney questions, but he will not be repeating the athletes’ advertising slogan, “I’m going to Disneyland.”

“I believe that would jeopardize my NCAA eligibility,” he said, laughing. “You have to be really careful with them.”

Ferreira first saw Kariya play during the NCAA tournament this year while sitting with Pierre Gauthier, the team’s assistant general manager and top amateur talent expert.

“I looked at Pierre at the end of the second period and said, ‘This guy’s a home run,’ ” Ferreira said. “In all your years scouting, there are very few players you go see who are the one guy in the game you can’t wait to see get back on the ice. That’s Paul Kariya. That’s what he did for me this year.

“He has that sense of everybody else around him that makes them better. He’s so clever with the puck, and he sees the entire ice.”

Other teams, some of them concerned about Kariya’s somewhat slight 5-10, 165-pound frame, preferred other players. But the Ducks zeroed in on him early, convinced he is speedy and slippery enough to hold up to NHL play.

“It’s a tough league to adjust to,” Ferreira said. “I’m not saying he’ll come in and be a superstar. He can come in and play.”

Size has been made an issue, but his skills aren’t questioned.

“He’s a dandy,” Toronto General Manager Cliff Fletcher said. “He may have more talent than any other player picked today.”

Gauthier’s black satchel of draft information--guarded so carefully the past few months that his wife, Manon, finally nicknamed the briefcase “The Future of the Franchise”--yielded a surprising number of Russians.

Gauthier is known for scouring Europe for talent, but the Ducks now have enough Russians to create their own expatriate society.

Those players join two Russian NHL players the Ducks selected in the expansion draft Thursday--defenseman Alexei Kasatonov and center Anatoli Semenov.

One reason the team ended up with so many Europeans is that it is a shortcut to acquiring players who can contribute. North Americans are drafted between the ages of 18-20, but there is no maximum age limit for Europeans, who cannot be signed without being drafted.

Thus Gauthier selected several players he thinks can help the team next year:

--Third-round pick Valery Karpov, 22, a right wing who played very well for the Russian national team in the 1993 World Championships and is coming off minor shoulder surgery. “I think he can step right into the lineup next fall,” Ferreira said.

--Fifth-round pick Mikhail Shtalenkov, 28, a goalie who played with Milwaukee in the American Hockey League this year and who is expected to compete with Guy Hebert and Ron Tugnutt in training camp next year. He adds needed depth after the team lost Glenn Healy in Phase II of the expansion draft Friday.

--And 10th-round pick Anatoli Fedotov, 27, a defenseman who played for Moncton in the AHL. He could help the team in its early stages, Gauthier said, and wasn’t much of a venture with a late-round pick.

“It was a long day,” Gauthier said. “But we got our man in the first round.”

The Top Picks 1. Ottawa Senators: Alexandre Daigle, C, Victoriaville (Quebec Major Junior Hockey League) 2. Hartford Whalers: Chris Pronger, D, Peterborough (Ontario Hockey League) 3. Tampa Bay Lightning: Chris Gratton, F, Kingston (Ontario Hockey League) 4. Mighty Ducks: Paul Kariya, F, University of Maine (NCAA Hockey East) 5. Florida Panthers: Rob Niedermayer, C, Medicine Hat (Western Hockey League)

Making the Rounds With the Mighty Ducks’ Draft Picks

1 PAUL KARIYA: CENTER 5-11, 175, Age 18, Maine/Hockey East Kariya led the NCAA Division I in scoring with 25 goals and 75 assists, becoming the first freshman to win the Hobey Baker award, signifying the top U.S. college player. He set Maine single-season records for points and assists and was named Hockey East player of the year and rookie of the year. Kariya, of North Vancouver, is regarded as a swift skater with strong stick-handling skills, as good at passing as he is shooting. Twice he was named the British Columbia Junior Hockey League’s MVP. He shoots left.

2 NIKOLAI TSULYGIN: DEFENSE 6-3, 196, Age 17, Salavat/Russia He was regarded as the best of a thin crop of Russians in this year’s draft. Scouts like his potential, but see many glaring weaknesses that need correcting. His strengths are his passing and a stay-at-home brand of defense, but scouts have been unimpressed by his skating ability. He is a veteran of the 1993 World Junior Championships, but reportedly played the tournament with an injured ankle. Tsulygin shoots right.

3 VALERY KARPOV: RIGHT WING 5-10, 176, Age 21, Chelybinsk/Russia The Ducks tripped up draft experts with this one. Karpov’s name is nowhere to be found among those expected to be among the top picks. For the record, he played for the Russian National team at the 1993 World Championships, and in 29 games for Chelybinsk last season, he scored 10 goals and had 15 assists. The Ducks are expecting him to be wearing their uniform next season. He underwent shoulder surgery. He shoots left.

4 JOEL GAGNON: GOALIE 6-0, 194, Age 18, Oshawa Generals/OHL Spent only one season in the OHL, earning second rookie all-star team honors. Made a name for himself with quick hands. Assisted on a goal last season. He shoots left.

5 MIKHAIL SHTALENKOV: GOALIE 6-2, 185, Age 28, Milwaukee/IHL Led Milwaukee, an independent team, to the division championship with a 26-14-5 record, three shutouts and a 3.03 goals-against average. He shoots left.

6 ANTTI AALTO: CENTER 6-2, 185, Age 18, TPS Turku/Finland Noted for his clever work around the net, fine balance and skating skills. He’s good on the power play and a standout penalty killer. Also played for Finland’s junior team.

7 MATT PETERSON: DEFENSE 6-1, 190, Age 18, Osseo, Minn./High school Peterson has announced that he will attend Wisconsin, and will likely honor that commitment. You have to believe a college career beats the minors for a seventh-round pick.

8 TOM ASKEY: GOALIE 6-2, 185, Age 18, Ohio State/CCHA His stats were horrible, but then again so were the Buckeyes. In 1992-93, he was 2-19-0 and Ohio State was 3-25-2. Still, he was on the CCHA’s all-freshman team.

9 VITALI KOZEL: CENTER 6-3, 183, Age 18, Dynamo Minsk/Belarus Fifth European taken, following three Russians and a Finn. No 1992-93 statistics available. Kozel shoots left.

10 ANATOLI FEDOTOV: DEFENSE 5-11, 178, Age 27, Moncton/AHL A former veteran of Moscow Dynamo who could step into the lineup right away. He scored 10 goals and had 37 assists in 76 games for Moncton last season.

11 DAVID PENNEY: LEFT WING 6-1, 175, Age 19, Worcester (Mass.) Academy/HS The Ducks will probably lose this one to the college ranks. Penney has announced he will play for Northeastern next season.