Ducks Optimistic About Offer to Kariya : Hockey: Three-year package worth at least $6 million prompts questions on details, which the team sees as a good sign.

The Mighty Ducks have made a dramatic bid to end their contract stalemate with Paul Kariya, improving their original offer by more than $1 million a year.

Sources said the formal offer made Friday is a three-year deal worth at least $6 million--an average of at least $2 million a year, including signing bonuses.

“We made our pitch and I don’t want to read too much into it, but (agent Don Baizley) called back and the questions pertained more to language in the contract than dollars,” said General Manager Jack Ferreira, who hopes to get a response as soon as Monday. “I just look at it as if it’s a serious consideration. If the dollars don’t make sense, they usually tell you right away. When you ask about the language of clauses and other things in the contract, that’s usually toward the end of the discussion.”

The contract would give Kariya, the fourth overall pick in the 1993 NHL draft, an average annual compensation higher than second-overall pick Chris Pronger, who signed a four-year, $7-million deal with Hartford that the Ducks said was “an aberration.” Ottawa’s Alexandre Daigle, the No. 1 pick, signed a five-year deal worth $12.25 million that included marketing rights.

The protracted talks have given the Ducks their first taste of controversy, and with the scheduled opening of training camp Sept. 4 approaching, they are eager to force a resolution if they can.

Since becoming the Ducks’ top draft pick last year, Kariya, 19, has starred for Canada in the Olympics and at the World Championships, where he was named most outstanding forward.

The negotiations have remained amicable, but stalled this summer when Baizley sought an interpretation from the NHL about Kariya’s status if he does not sign this year.

Baizley has contended that because Kariya, who turns 20 in October, will be too old to re-enter the draft if he remains unsigned, he should become an unrestricted free agent. Though he said there is “no anti-Anaheim sentiment at all,” Baizley says “any talented young player would rather choose from 26 teams than one” and that Kariya has looked into attending college near his parents’ home in Vancouver this fall.

Ferreira has been frustrated by Baizley’s reluctance to discuss financial terms until the free-agency issue was decided, as well as the fact that Baizley has never made a counter-offer to the Ducks’ original offer, believed to be worth about $850,000 a season.

But after a two-hour meeting Monday in Vancouver--the first face-to-face negotiations since June--Baizley said Kariya was awaiting the Ducks’ new offer and would then wrestle with the decision about whether to sign or pursue a ruling that might make him a free agent if he sits out the season.

Because NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman recently indicated he will not make any rulings until there is an actual dispute, not merely a hypothetical one, Kariya will have to make his decision without knowing his options. That would make not signing a gamble--and one that might be even riskier because a rookie salary cap and other restrictions are at issue in the collective bargaining talks that threaten to cause a work stoppage.