Sillinger Gets His Wish and Ducks Benefit : Hockey: Center who wanted to be traded from Detroit has moved onto Anaheim’s top line.

The first time a player visits his old team after being traded, the old joke is that he’ll accidentally head for the wrong dressing room.

If Mike Sillinger goes on auto-pilot when he walks into Joe Louis Arena today, he’ll end up in the press box.

That’s where he spent the last month or so of his life as a Detroit Red Wing until the trade he begged for finally came and he became a Mighty Duck.

Sillinger and Jason York were shaking hands and laughing with Ray Sheppard, Keith Primeau, Paul Coffey and other ex-teammates while the Ducks got ready to practice Thursday at Joe Louis Arena. But they don’t wish for a minute they were still there, Stanley Cup hopes or not.

“I’m not too worried about Detroit anymore,” said Sillinger, who came to Anaheim with York early this month for Stu Grimson, Mark Ferner and a draft pick. “I can’t get caught up in the idea of going out and proving they made a mistake by not giving me a chance. I should be thanking them for trading me to Anaheim. They knew I wanted to play.

“I was sitting up in the press box waiting to be traded-- hoping to be traded. It was well worth the wait. I’m here now and there’s no better place to go. This is a first-class organization, like Detroit is.”

Sillinger has been a first-class addition to the Mighty Ducks, centering a skilled and speedy top line with Paul Kariya and Todd Krygier. He looks like a veteran, and it’s easy to forget he’s only 23--the same age as rookie Valeri Karpov, who is still trying to become an NHL regular.

After nine games with the Ducks, Sillinger has three assists but scored his first goal for the team only Wednesday against Toronto.

“You can’t look at the stats right now. He’s hit goal posts and had chances to score a lot of goals,” York said. “He gets to show off what he does best now. In Detroit he was in more of a defensive role, killing penalties and making sure he didn’t get scored on.”

Sillinger’s two-way play helps Duck Coach Ron Wilson breathe easier.

“That probably comes from playing on the the third or fourth line in Detroit, in a defensive role,” Wilson said. “He’s playing the same way now but showing he can create as well.”

Just being on the ice and feeling like part of a team again has been a rebirth for Sillinger.

“I think it was really frustrating for Mike,” York said. “In Detroit he never really got a good chance. They had (Steve) Yzerman and then they got (Sergei) Fedorov and Primeau. Whenever he did play he played well. It was the same for myself, I was behind Paul Coffey and (Niklas) Lidstrom and (Vladimir) Konstantinov. . . . But he was there a little longer. He was a first-rounder too.”

Sillinger was the 11th pick in the 1989 draft, and that added to the pressure of expectations, his own and others. But he ended up in a logjam behind Detroit’s standout centers. He couldn’t break into the lineup, but the Red Wings wouldn’t trade him, either.

General Manager Jack Ferreira finally pried him loose after Sillinger asked for a trade and the Red Wings agreed to oblige him. The Kings were one of the teams that had tried to get him before, as far back as the 1993 trade that sent Coffey and two other players to Detroit for Jimmy Carson, Gary Shuchuk and Marc Potvin.

King Coach Barry Melrose knew Sillinger well after winning the American Hockey League championship in 1992 when Melrose coached the Adirondack Red Wings and Sillinger was a first-year pro.

Sillinger played the regular season and first playoff series with Adirondack, then got called up to Detroit for two rounds of the playoffs, then went back to Adirondack to help Melrose’s team wrap up the Calder Cup. He missed a playoff series, and still led the league in playoff scoring with 28 points in 15 games.

“The two names I mentioned were Primeau and Sillinger,” Melrose said. “But we weren’t able to get them. He was drafted into an organization so deep in centers. He was drafted as a scoring center but he was behind guys like Fedorov and Yzerman. I knew Mike would be a dominating center, even when he was 20 years old.

“He just needed a chance to get into his role,” Melrose said. “Mike is a kid who needs confidence. He just needs to play with good people. He just needed a chance.”

Times staff writer Lisa Dillman contributed to this story.