Wilson Agrees to Be Ducks’ First Coach : Hockey: Canuck assistant offered multiyear contract. He is chosen over Sims, Murphy.

Ron Wilson, a Vancouver Canuck assistant coach who wore a Donald Duck tie to Saturday’s NHL entry draft, has been chosen to become the first coach of the Mighty Ducks.

Wilson was offered the job Monday, agreeing in principle to a multiyear contract. The team is expected to introduce him as coach at a news conference Wednesday.

Wilson, a 38-year-old former defenseman selected over former King coach Mike Murphy and minor league coach Al Sims, said at the draft he believed he might be out of the running, but that the purple-and-green tie--a Christmas gift from Vancouver Coach Pat Quinn and his wife--had been his good-luck charm throughout the season.

Said to be a favorite of Quinn, the former King coach who is general manager and coach of the Canucks, Wilson has relatively little experience as a head coach. An assistant with Vancouver the past three seasons, he was interim head coach of the minor league Milwaukee Admirals of the International Hockey League for part of the 1989-90 season, stepping up from an assistant’s position to fill in while the late Ron Lapointe underwent treatment for cancer.

The Admirals were 9-10 under Wilson, a spokesman for the team said.

With Vancouver--which supplied the Ducks with one of their expansion picks, forward Anatoli Semenov--one of Wilson’s specialties has been the computer analysis of players. The Vancouver media, however, has criticized his direction of the team’s power play, which ranked 21st out of 24 NHL teams. The Canucks scored on 17.3% of their power-play opportunities. Detroit led the NHL at 24.9%.

The other two finalists have considerably more experience running a team.

Murphy, an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs, was coach of the Kings during parts of two seasons, from 1986-88. He followed Quinn as coach and had a record of 20-37-8 before being replaced by Robbie Ftorek.

Sims, a former King defenseman, has coached the Ft. Wayne Komets of the IHL the past four seasons and guided them through the playoffs unbeaten to the IHL title this season, sweeping the San Diego Gulls in the final.

Attempts to reach Wilson were unsuccessful.

Wilson’s reputation as a bright and personable coach with a sense of humor that might help carry him through the rigors of expansion apparently swayed the Ducks. Disney Chairman Michael Eisner, who met with each of the three finalists during their second interviews, had said that it is important for a coach in Los Angeles to look good, dress well and be good with the media.

Wilson’s attitudes toward hockey also seem to fit in with the Ducks’ plans to be a skill-oriented team, as they indicated by taking 5-foot-10, 165-pound playmaker Paul Kariya from the University of Maine with the No. 4 overall pick in the entry draft.

By reputation, Wilson does not care much for fighting.

The son of a hockey coach, Wilson grew up in Canada and the United States and played at Providence College. A defenseman and winger, he played seven seasons in the NHL, with Toronto and Minnesota, but also spent much of his career playing in Switzerland. He finished his career with the North Stars in 1987-88. He had 22 goals, 81 points and 66 penalty minutes in seven NHL seasons.

Others who were interviewed included three minor league coaches--Marc Crawford of the St. John’s Maple Leafs, Rick Dudley of the San Diego Gulls and Jay Leach of the Springfield Indians. The team had considered approaching King assistant Cap Raeder, but he signed a three-year extension with the Kings.