1995 NHL PREVIEW : Second Season Is His First : Mighty Ducks: Short schedule puts pressure on rookie sensation Kariya.

EDMONTON, Canada — Paul Kariya had to wait for the NHL season, and now the Zamboni waits for him.

No matter how grueling the practice, Kariya stays on the ice when the other Mighty Ducks leave it, still caught up in the playful perfectionism that makes his debut one of the most anticipated of the shortened NHL season.

With the rink almost to himself, he knocks airborne pucks down with his stick, disappointed if he misses even one. He shoots from one spot, then another, firing piles of pucks into the net. And all the while he is trying new moves, different sleights of stick, any way to elude the defense.

“I used the time to improve the weaknesses I saw in my game during the exhibition season,” said Kariya, 20, who also added needed bulk by lifting weights. “I knew the lockout was coming, and I used the time wisely. I feel like I’ve improved.”

He and Quebec’s Peter Forsberg are the leading candidates for rookie of the year, but the Ducks had a pretty good rookie year themselves last season, sharing an expansion record with the Florida Panthers by winning a remarkable 33 games--six more than the Kings, who only a season earlier had reached the Stanley Cup finals.

Despite the Ducks’ success, watching them play was sometimes like watching ice freeze. They had a powerless power play--the worst in the NHL--and a lineup of grinders and unproven scorers. But they succeeded with a blend of physical play and diligent defense. Will they be any different this season?

“Once every four shifts,” Coach Ron Wilson said, his own excitement slipping through. “You’ll see a big difference when the Kariya-Karpov-Semenov line is on the ice.”

The rest of the team figures to be as workmanlike as before.

Kariya and fellow rookie Valeri Karpov, 23, claimed spots on the team’s first line almost from the day they put on Duck uniforms in September, and Kariya led the team in scoring during the exhibition season with three goals and five assists in eight games, several of them dazzling performances.

The rookies will be centered by Russian veteran Anatoli Semenov, whose European playmaking blends well with the finesse of Karpov, another Russian, and Kariya, a Canadian whose playing style and taste for borscht have made him the line’s honorary Russian.

The focus is on Kariya, but the Ducks’ success probably depends on their ability to blend in the skill of Kariya, Karpov and, eventually, talented rookie defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky without losing the disciplined defensive style they relied on before.

Without the fear of the ignominy a disastrous first season would have brought, will they play as hard?

“I think it’s very important for us to play the same way we did last year, especially early in the season,” said captain Randy Ladouceur. “We’re not going to win wide-open games. We’ve got some new players who improved our skill level, but our bread-and-butter is playing good, solid defense in our own end and grinding it out. It’s going to be very important early on for us not to slack off defensively.

“With the season set up the way it is, if you get off to an 8-2 or 7-3 start in your first 10 games, you’ve gone a long way toward making the playoffs. But if you start 2-8, 3-7, you’ve got a lot of ground to make up in a short period of time.”

The Ducks might have an early advantage over teams that rely more on finesse, which takes longer to recover after a layoff.

Their goaltending situation looks good too. Their backup, Mikhail Shtalenkov, is not far behind No. 1 Guy Hebert. With the pace of the compressed season, teams may have to give backups more games than they usually would, and Wilson is comfortable alternating goalies.

The 48-game season doesn’t bother Wilson, because the longer the season is, the more “the wheat is separated from the chaff,” he said.

“I like it,” Wilson said. “I would dislike it if I was a Stanley Cup contender, or perceived to be one. It might work against good teams. If you have a little slump, a couple of injuries, you don’t have much time to make up ground. Teams like Detroit or Vancouver could have one or two injuries and watch their season go down the toilet.

“But if you play great the first 15 games, then you can sit back and play .500 and be in the playoffs. I’m not sticking my neck out and saying we’re a playoff team yet, because other teams last year had off years. The Los Angeles Kings and Winnipeg Jets are both teams that are better than they played last year.”

Besides adding skill up front by signing Kariya and Karpov--two of the last rookies to reap the benefits of soaring salaries before the entry-level salary cap took effect--the Ducks added a power-play specialist last summer, acquiring defenseman Tom Kurvers from the New York Islanders for winger Troy Loney, the team’s original captain.

One indication of management’s confidence in the rookies was the trade of Terry Yake to Toronto just before the lockout began. Yake led the team in scoring with 52 points last season, but he fell down the depth chart in preseason play.

Returning players Wilson is counting on are center Bob Corkum, who had 23 goals and 28 assists last season, and speedy right wing Joe Sacco, who after a slow start scored 15 goals in the second half of the season. The Ducks will start the season without last year’s third-leading scorer, left wing Garry Valk, who has a strained ligament in his left knee.