Mighty Ducks Add Muscle to the Lineup

The return of Paul Kariya tonight will be the most soothing balm the Mighty Ducks could possibly feel, but General Manager Jack Ferreira kept trying to improve the NHL’s worst team Tuesday by making his second trade in two days.

Seeking to bolster the team’s faltering defense by adding tough, physical players, Ferreira acquired enforcer Shawn Antoski and defenseman Dimitri Mironov from Pittsburgh for defenseman Fredrik Olausson and center Alex Hicks.

Ferreira had talked to Penguins’ General Manager Craig Patrick in an attempt to get center Bryan Smolinski, who ended up with the New York Islanders, but Tuesday’s deal evolved from those talks.

Antoski’s antagonistic style is well known, and Mironov, 6 feet 3 and 215 pounds, is bigger and more physical than Olausson, who is mostly a power-play specialist and has struggled at times defensively.

Still, Olausson was tied for third in scoring on the Ducks with two goals and 11 points and was the team’s highest scoring defenseman. Hicks had two goals and eight points.

Mironov has one goal and six points and Antoski, a forward, doesn’t have a point but has 49 penalty minutes.

“This just changes the chemistry,” Ferreira said. “It’s not like we were displeased with either of those guys. We just needed a different dimension.”

One day earlier, Ferreira addressed the team’s offensive production and power play by picking up 15-year veteran Brian Bellows from Tampa Bay for a sixth-round draft pick. Bellows, who can become a free agent after this season, had asked for a trade.

Those are moves that could help stabilize a Duck team that is off to its worst start, at 4-13-3. But nothing is more important than the return of Kariya, who has played in only seven games, missing the last two because of a concussion after being elbowed by Toronto’s Mathieu Schneider last week.

Without Kariya, the Ducks are 1-10-2. With him, they are 3-3-1.

“I’m back to normal,” Kariya said after practice Tuesday, saying Schneider’s hit “was like a knockout punch to the jaw.”

Schneider was suspended three games.

“I definitely think he should be out as much as I’m out, but it looks like I’ll be back a game earlier,” Kariya said.

Kariya was so dazed after the Schneider hit that he didn’t remember missing the first 11 games because of an abdominal injury and didn’t know what place the Ducks were in.

“When they told me I kept saying, ‘How the hell can we be in last place?’ ”

That’s the same question being asked in Pittsburgh, where the Penguins are in last place in the Eastern Conference despite having Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr.

“Too many players didn’t show up to camp, and there was the World Cup,” Mironov said. “It’s a little bad start for the team right now, but like I told you, it’s a long season. The same thing in Anaheim. Don’t count them out. There are 60 more games.”