MIGHTY DUCK NOTEBOOK / ELLIOTT TEAFORD : Gauthier Says Reluctant Goodbyes

There were smiling former co-workers and a cake waiting for Pierre Gauthier in a conference room Friday afternoon at The Pond. The inscription on the cake read: Bon voyage.

Gauthier, named the Ottawa Senators’ general manager Monday after helping the Mighty Ducks get started as their assistant GM, was busy cleaning out his old office when he was summoned to a party in his honor. It lasted about two hours because no one wanted it to end.

“Once it was settled in Ottawa,” Gauthier said before the Ducks played host to the Senators, “the toughest thing to do was say goodbye. I felt sick to my stomach to be leaving.

“It’s that disease called ambition.”

Perhaps the only surprise surrounding Gauthier’s departure was that it didn’t come sooner. There were rumors each time a GM’s job became available. Gauthier could have filled openings with the Montreal Canadiens or New York Islanders quite capably, but those teams went in different directions.

When Ottawa sacked Randy Sexton and offered the job to Gauthier, he jumped at the chance.

Anaheim is hockey nirvana compared to Ottawa. But Gauthier learned his lessons well while working for the Ducks, and he is determined to straighten out the woebegone Senators.

“It was like a two-year seminar on how to run a sports franchise,” he said of working for the Ducks. “I have a five-year guarantee [in Ottawa], so I’m on the boss of the organization.’

So when Gauthier met with the Senators for the first time Tuesday, he told them to forget the past. There would be no looking back as long as he was in charge. The future started as soon as he was done speaking, he told them.

It won’t be an easy task, particularly when the present has such a familiar look to it. The Senators had won once in 19 games after their loss Friday to the Ducks.

So wretched is their reputation that Bryan Berard, a defenseman who was the top overall pick in the draft, decided against signing a contract worth as much as $850,000 and instead has been playing for $40 a week for a junior team in Detroit.

Tom Laidlaw, Berard’s agent, told reporters this week that Gauthier’s hiring changes little.

“I don’t think it solves anything,” Laidlaw said.

And then there is the case of holdout Alexei Yashin, who had 44 points in 47 games for the Senators last season but wants the final three years of his five-year, $4.2-million contract renegotiated. At the moment, Yashin is cooling his heels at home in Russia.

Gauthier barely completed his first work week in Ottawa and has already grown weary of daily questions about Berard and Yashin. His daily answer has been: “Wait for the big smile, and then you’ll know.”

He intends to begin pressing the issue with representatives for both players, knowing full well the Senators are better with Berard and Yashin than without.

On the good side, Gauthier’s wife, Manon, is expecting the couple’s second child Jan. 16. He will be by her side when she gives birth in Orange County. The next day in Ottawa, the new 18,500-seat Palladium is set to open. He hopes to be there too.

It seems Gauthier’s days will continue to be filled with new beginnings.