Semenov Expresses Himself On, Off the Ice : Ducks: Moscow-born center has emerged as the leading scorer and best offensive player.

When the lights glare, the cameras crowd in and the microphones are offered like so many bouquets, Anatoli Semenov protests that his English is not very good.

When the group is smaller, and the risk of being misunderstood is less, the Moscow-born center for the Mighty Ducks expresses himself just fine.

“Darwinism,” he told a Vancouver reporter who asked how he had made the adjustment to four NHL teams in four seasons after playing 11 seasons for the same Russian team, Moscow Dynamo.

Say what?

“Darwinism,” Semenov said. “Like animals in the jungle. The strong survive.”

Semenov is an intelligent man--you can see that in his eyes, just as he sees it in yours when you nod as if you understand him but really don’t. “People say, ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh,’ ” Semenov said. “But their eyes, I see they don’t understand.”

And this Darwinism bit? Semenov laughs.

“ Darwinisme ,” he says, approximately. “Just a little different pronounce.”

Semenov, 31, has undergone an evolution as a hockey player since leaving the former Soviet Union for the Edmonton Oilers in 1990.

He was schooled in the way of Russian centers, as an elegant passer and checker, a finesse player at ease on the bigger European ice surface--a player who subjugated himself to the team.

“That’s the way he’s been brought up playing,” Ducks Coach Ron Wilson said. “He was never on the No. 1 line in Russia. He’s got that mind-set, don’t get scored against, and the offense will be taken care of by other people. But in our situation here, he’s the man.”

Indeed.

After a slow start, Semenov has emerged as the leading scorer and best offensive player on a suddenly sizzling Duck team. He has a team-leading eight goals and 14 assists, and has 16 points in his last 12 games.

He has undergone an almost palpable transformation. The catalyst has been a new line combination with left wing Garry Valk, a teammate in Vancouver last season, and right wing Peter Douris. Together, the three have combined for 38 points in the last dozen games.

An earlier combination with Terry Yake, the Ducks’ second-best playmaker, didn’t take. Valk and Douris have a straighter-up-and-down style, and they are able to go in the corners where neither Semenov nor Yake fares very well.

Valk played on a line with Semenov late last season with the Canucks, but they were mostly in a checking role. Now, more and more, he sees Semenov shooting.

“You know, he was playing with Pavel Bure a lot of the year last year. He would be on a breakaway and he’d stop and pass it to Pavel,” Valk said. “He wasn’t asked to score, he was asked to get Pavel the puck so he got Pavel the puck . . . Pavel ended up getting 60 goals last year. I’m sure Anatoli was in on three-quarters of them. He’s a creator.

“Here it probably took him a while to get used to having to shoot more. He been doing that a lot more lately. That’s what we want him to do because he’s got a big shot.”

Wilson was an assistant coach in Vancouver last season, so he knew what he had in Semenov, who had 10 goals and 34 assists in 62 games with the Canucks after being traded from Tampa Bay.

Wilson has made him understand that the first-year Ducks need to wring all the skill they can from the players they have.

“We couldn’t get him to shoot last year, but then again he was playing with Pavel Bure,” Wilson said. “Tony’s got a logical mind, he figures he might as well pass to someone who shoots better. But we don’t have anybody who shoots better here. So I’ve appealed to his logic: ‘You’re the best shooter we have, so shoot.’ ”

Semenov has complied.

“I don’t like to shoot lots,” he said. “Why not? Usually I play more passes. I like better nice pass than score.

“But I understand, if you don’t shoot, you don’t score. That’s simple.”

No one is more struck by the difference than defenseman Alexei Kasatonov, who played with Semenov on the 1988 Soviet Olympic team and played against him for many years in the Soviet Elite League, when Kasatonov played for Central Red Army.

This quick-release slap shot?

“Yes, for me, it’s . . . uh . . . surprise,” Kasatonov said. “I know he likes to pass and plays defense. This season he score lots of goals.

“I think he’s having his best season, playing very well. I think he’s best player on our team, really a leader and playmaker. I think very important for us. If he will play same, I think we will play good too.”

Semenov has had a reputation for being fragile by NHL standards, and he can be knocked down rather easily at times. Wilson saw him struggle late last season--probably one reason the Canucks left him unprotected for the expansion draft--and he has countered by giving his No. 1 center liberal time off from practice.

“I think that, rested properly between games, he can play like this the whole year,” Wilson said.

It is Semenov’s slender 6-foot-2, 190-pound build, less than his age, that makes him tend to wear down.

“Last year in Vancouver, we didn’t manage his time very well and he got tired at the end of the season,” Wilson said. “I saw Tony last year the last two months of the season where nothing really happened. He’s playing with one of the best players in the game (Bure) and had maybe one goal in his last 30 games and something like only 13 or 14 points.

“I thought, and I always did, he wasn’t used to at this level playing as much as he was. He was penalty killing, power play and regular shift. And then we practiced a lot in Vancouver and we didn’t ever give Tony the breaks. So with that in my mind right now, that Tony wears down as the season goes on, I’m not practicing him very hard. He only practices maybe half the times we practice. That’s fine with me. As long as he’s in the games, I don’t care about practice.”

The games are what count, and Semenov’s confidence seems to increase every time he skates in and unleashes his hard, accurate slap shot, though he says the assists are as satisfying as ever.

“His mind-set is changing from what I’d seen before,” Wilson said. “He constantly tells himself he’s not that good of a hockey player, and I think he’s a great hockey player, but he never encourages himself. I think he’s doing more of that, and expecting more.”

Semenov grins.

“Now, for me, just fun, I like it. I like this team. I don’t know, I just, I love it.”