Old Times at the Pond, or the Same Old Story?

Who could have imagined at the end of last season that a December game at the Pond with Ron Wilson coaching and Paul Kariya playing would qualify as big news?

It still seems strange, as strange as Wilson’s standing outside the visitors’ locker room Thursday and talking about his team’s objective of “putting pucks behind Guy Hebert.”

Of course, this used to be Wilson’s home arena and Hebert used to be his goaltender. But things have changed.

Or have they?

From his new position as coach of the Washington Capitals, Wilson looks at the situation Pierre Page inherited as coach of the Mighty Ducks and how he has handled it and sees something pretty familiar.

Among the reasons given by management to legitimize the personality clash-driven firing of Wilson last summer was that he was too reliant on his superstar line, featuring Kariya and Teemu Selanne, and that he didn’t develop the younger players. The players complained that Wilson wouldn’t allow them freedom on the ice.

Two months into the new season with the new coach, Selanne does all the scoring, and most of the youngsters have made negligible contributions. Page has returned to last year’s defense-oriented system. And last weekend he blasted the players, saying the scorers aren’t scoring and the checkers aren’t checking, and announced that all free-wheeling privileges had been revoked until the Ducks prove they deserve them.

Wilson couldn’t miss seeing the irony.

“It’s funny to see some of the criticisms that you get here, and then you read the same quotes by a different guy in the paper, you see the same young guys not playing here,” Wilson said.

The situation may be familiar but it was far from normal this week at the Pond.

It wasn’t normal Thursday, when Wilson arrived on a team bus, not his own car, and used the visitors’ entrance.

It won’t be normal tonight, when Page, the home coach and a man who has done a pretty good job of holding the Ducks together in the 32 games before Kariya ended his holdout, could very well be booed.

And it’s not often that you hear the visiting coach cheered, as will undoubtedly happen tonight.

“I [won’t be] expecting the [same] reaction that Mike Keenan got in St. Louis the other night,” Wilson said, referring to the boos that greeted the Vancouver Canuck and former Blues’ coach every time he was shown on the big screen at the Kiel Center. “But I [wouldn’t] exactly expect to see my face on the Jumbotron, allowing the reaction to occur.”

If General Manager Jack Ferreira and President Tony Tavares had their way, Wilson wouldn’t even be listed in the program or pregame notes. The Ducks prefer to act as if he never existed. They left him out of their 1996-97 highlight video, shown at the first home game of the season, and you’ll see his name only in tiny type in this year’s media guide, under past team photos and franchise transactions.

You knew they were oh-so-happy that they could spend Thursday talking about the Kariya signing instead of explaining that Wilson firing one more time.

And who became a footnote in this heavy news day at the Pond? Page.

He talked last and least at the Kariya news conference. Reporters came up to him afterward only if they had a little extra time and tape left.

The room had all but cleared out when he was asked about spending his first year in Wilson’s shadow.

“I thought it was normal,” Page said. “If you think about the perfect couple and all of a sudden they get divorced, then you say ‘Why did they get divorced?’ And you find out that a lot of people do that, even though they’re supposed to be the perfect couple.

“That’s basically what happened here. You follow behind the perfect couple. For the first few months or the first year, you have to deal with it, whether you want it or not. I think it’s just normal, because Ron grew with the franchise. It’s not realistic to think people are not going to talk about it.”

People talked about that and everything else at the Pond on Thursday. They talked about the history of the negotiations with Kariya. They talked about how quickly Kariya might return to form and how far he might take the Ducks in the playoffs.

Wilson, now a foreigner in his old home land, was talking about life in the present. What’s not to like about it? He’s making twice as much money. His Capitals are off to a 15-11-5 start. The only drawback was leaving his wife and daughter here.

“I certainly feel--except for being apart from my family--I feel happier in Washington, with the way things are working out there,” Wilson said. “Apparently they’re very pleased with Pierre. If all of the parties are happy, that’s great.”

Not a single frown to be found at the Pond. Kariya was there. Wilson was there. Kind of like old times.

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J.A. Adande is a columnist for the Orange County edition of The Times.