MIGHTY DUCK NOTEBOOK / ROBYN NORWOOD : Kariya Is Moving to Head of His Rookie Class

Paul Kariya, a noted student of the game, is acing his mid-terms.

The lull when Kariya scored only one goal during a 13-game stretch is over, and he is back where some people expected him to be all along--atop the list of rookie scoring leaders.

“I don’t think it’s just a little burst,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said after watching Kariya put together four two-point games in a row. “He’s not going to score two points every night, but I think we’ll see more consistent point output from him from now on.”

Kariya showed flash and creativity from the beginning, but sometimes it amounted to nothing--and sometimes to an outnumbered attack going the other way. Those behind-the-back passes through the slot are pretty, but if his teammates weren’t there, they didn’t amount to much. NHL defensemen are too good for some of the things Kariya was trying to do. Lately, it’s been different.

“I think he’s simplified his game a lot,” Wilson said. “He’s not making a lot of fancy blind passes. He’s playing positionally better, and not getting too far ahead of the play. He’s settled in.”

Kariya says he’s realized the Ducks need him to score goals more than make pretty passes, and he’s turned his attention more to putting the puck in the net, not just near it.

It helps that he’s playing with Stephan Lebeau, a player on Kariya’s wavelength with a skillful touch around the net, and Shaun Van Allen, whose feisty ways belie the fact that he was a 100-point scorer in the minors.

Back when he was playing with Anatoli Semenov and Valeri Karpov, Kariya’s defensive shortcomings might have been magnified--and Karpov’s rookie struggles kept him from finishing some of the chances Kariya created.

Wilson, a former Vancouver assistant, compares Kariya’s adjustment to that of a Canuck rookie a few years ago.

“I liken his first season to Pavel Bure’s,” Wilson said. “He showed a lot of flash at the beginning and then slowed down for a while. They had to learn the NHL game.”

Bure had a 60-point rookie season. Kariya finished the first half of the shortened season on pace to score 63 points in a full 84-game season. He’s on a 36-point pace for the shortened 48-game season.

Every day is a learning experience, Kariya said, but he admits he was surprised NHL teams didn’t wait for him to do something before they started paying him special attention. It happened from the first game of the season against Edmonton, when the Oilers put Kelly Buchberger’s checking line on the ice against Kariya all night.

“I thought I at least would have to put up numbers the first half of the year to get that type of attention,” Kariya said. “It’s usually the top defense pair or a defensive forward. That’s been an adjustment.”

An even bigger adjustment has been playing the defensive style Wilson demands. He’s given Kariya more leeway than others, but he wouldn’t stand for a plus-minus rating that crept to minus-14 and is now at minus-10.

“If you have four guys playing defense, and the other team has five playing offense, basically you’re killing a penalty,” Wilson said. “Paul had to get in his head that all five guys have to contribute defensively. That’s been the hardest part.”

Yes, he’s just a rookie, but he’s still the Ducks’ best player, even while he’s learning how to play in the NHL.

“I don’t feel pressure, and I don’t think it’s there,” Kariya said. “There are very few players in this league who can carry a team, and I’m certainly not one of those guys.”

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Calder Trophy watch: With 20 points, Kariya leads rookie scorers, just ahead of Edmonton rookie Todd Marchant. But for now the favorite for the Calder Trophy, which goes to the NHL rookie of the year, might be Boston goalie Blaine Lacher, who was 10-5-1 with a 2.08 goals-against average before Saturday’s games.

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Midseason Grades: Forwards--D. The performances of Bob Corkum, Garry Valk and Joe Sacco have been the biggest disappointments of the season. All three need strong second halves to have any leverage in ongoing contract negotiations. Defense--D. Tom Kurvers has steadied himself after a bad start, but the forwards and defensemen who made last season’s team a success have faltered until recently. Bobby Dollas, an unheard-of plus-20 for a first-year team last season, is minus-3. Goaltending--B+. Getting Guy Hebert in the expansion draft was one of the best moves the Ducks ever made. Power Play--D. How can the worst power play in the NHL last season add Kariya and Kurvers and be worse? Penalty Killing--F. Effort, not skill, is the key ingredient and the Ducks flunk. Special Citation: The Pond’s ice surface gets an F. It is widely acknowledged as the worst ice in the league, edging the former champion up the freeway at the Forum. Chicago’s Jeremy Roenick said it was like skating in sand. Detroit’s Paul Coffey said he wouldn’t let a 2-year-old skate on it, calling it dangerous, “the worst ice I’ve seen in my life”--and blaming the pregame entertainment.