MIGHTY DUCK NOTEBOOK / ROBYN NORWOOD : Players Will Have to Adjust to the Rules to Avoid Penalty Box

The Mighty Ducks have been accused of being a bunch of clutch-and-grabbers by players from Brett Hull to Theoren Fleury. With the NHL cracking down on restraining fouls this season, Duck Coach Ron Wilson watched closely Friday after a league briefing on how rules will be enforced.

“We counted stuff today in our scrimmage and there would have been 50 penalties in an hour and a half,” Wilson said. “I’ll be honest, I’m sure in some ways teams will be pointing the finger at us. They’ll be looking at us, the Sharks, the Panthers. But the New Jersey Devils are an example too.”

Wilson joked that the emphasis on eliminating hooking and holding in the neutral zone “is going to force about 10 of our guys to reconsider if they’re in the right profession,” but he’s pulling as hard for consistent enforcement as anyone.

“It’s cheating,” he said. “It’s cheating that’s allowed, and if it’s allowed everybody’s going to do it.

“I tell people we might have to play the whole game in the penalty box or on the power play at first, but it will make our game better,” he said. “Too many people complain this isn’t hockey, the game’s too slow.”

The exhibition season will be players’ chance to adjust.

“There are a lot of gray areas as far as what you call and what you don’t,” Wilson said. “It will take players time to get used to it.

“I’m just hoping the officials stick to the rules the coaches and general managers want. We’ve always had a lot of false starts, but we’ve got to stick to it.”

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Players have seen “points of emphasis” come and go, such as calling penalties for “diving” or holding opponents’ sticks.

“What difference do I think it will make, or how long do I think it will last?” said Duck center Mike Sillinger, who will watch a videotaped briefing with his teammates before the team’s exhibition opener Sunday at Dallas. “There’s no sense in having teams spend the whole time in the penalty box the first half of the season if they’re not going to call anything come playoff time.

“I think it will make the game better [if they enforce the rules more consistently]. I’m not saying I don’t clutch and grab, I do. But as far as getting clutched and grabbed, I don’t like it.”

Center Shaun Van Allen expects it to take awhile for players to know what to expect from referees.

“It will be on the players’ shoulders to make the adjustment,” he said. “The last thing anyone wants is to watch power plays all game.”

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Fighting is outlawed at Duck training camp because Wilson finds it pointless to watch teammates risk injury to prove their toughness.

One breaks out occasionally nonetheless, and Friday’s pitted tough guy Denny Lambert and defenseman Brian Corcoran, who played football and hockey at Massachusetts Amherst.

“I never fought before,” said Corcoran, fresh from college hockey, where fighters are ejected for the first offense and banned for the season for the second. “After the fight I said, ‘Thanks for the lesson.’ I’m going to have to learn. It wasn’t real cutthroat. I just got my feet wet.”

Lambert, playing on a standout line with Sillinger and Valeri Karpov, came to Karpov’s defense because Corcoran, a former Division I-AA football All-American, was “bothering” him.

“They say no fighting but sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” Lambert said. “It was an even fight, nobody got hurt. It was funny. He went down and said something like, ‘Thanks for my first fight,’ And I said, ‘Good job.’