Angels, Not Ducks, Are On the Move

Disney had a free-agent signing to announce Sunday. Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with the Mighty Ducks.

The Angels locked up pitcher Ken Hill for three years with an option for a fourth. If he pitches the way he did in September and Chuck Finley pitches the way he did in July, the Angels have a great one-two punch in their rotation.

It’s amazing what gets accomplished when two sides want to make something happen. Hill and his wife decided they wanted to stick with the Angels. The Angels made signing Hill an off-season priority. Done deal.

Meanwhile, the non-negotiations between the Ducks and Paul Kariya continue. We’re reaching a critical stage here. A quarter of the season has gone by, yet nobody’s acting as if there’s a sense of urgency.

The Ducks sure could have used Kariya in a 4-0 loss to the Dallas Stars Sunday. Teemu Selanne had single-handedly carried this team (and done a pretty effective job of reducing Kariya’s leverage for a while) over the previous 13 games. He scored goals in 12 of the games and his wife gave birth to their second son just hours before the one game in which he didn’t score, so it would be tough to call that a bad day.

But it was clear Sunday that all the hits, checks, slashes and hooks have caught up to him. He still works harder than anyone on the ice. Against the Dallas Stars it took him longer to get up after hits and he was doubled over in exhaustion when he headed toward the bench at the end of his shifts.

“I didn’t feel as good as I usually do,” Selanne said.

This weekend’s games at the Pond made Kariya’s absence even more glaring when you looked at who was in uniform for the opposition. Alexander Mogilny decided enough was enough last week and ended his holdout by signing a four-year, $17.2-million contract with the Vancouver Canucks. He scored a goal Friday in a 3-3 tie with the Ducks.

Dallas’ Mike Modano finished last season strong and had one of the better years of his career, yet said “I still felt like I had a lot to prove.”

Modano, unlike Kariya, realizes your reputation is made on the ice, not over the phone line.

So he signed a one-year deal worth a modest $3.5 million and he was ready to go for the first game.

“I didn’t want to drag it out through the regular season,” Modano said. “I felt it would hurt both me and the team in the long run.”

Of course it would. Instead he’s helping the team now and setting himself up for big bucks down the road. He’s among the league scoring leaders and his two short-handed assists Sunday gave him 27 points for the season.

I’d love to be his agent next summer. The great players always get their worth eventually.

Did we mention that Selanne, the top goal-scorer in the league, will make just over $3 million this year? Is he holding out? No. Will he get paid--either here or elsewhere--when it’s time for a new contract? You bet.

About the only good thing to report on the Ducks’ front is that they won’t be around much over the next three weeks. Eight of their next 10 games are on the road.

Normally, that would be bad news. Not for this team. They’re 5-1-2 in road games played in North America, 2-6-3 at the Pond.

They fall behind early at the Pond. They blow leads at the Pond. They do everything here except win.

It didn’t help that the Stars are one of the league’s best road teams, which made Sunday’s result almost academic.

The Ducks were pressing Sunday, trying too hard against a neutral zone trap that demands patience. By giving up two goals on their own power play, the Ducks gave a whole new meaning to “penalty killing” (as in, “Our power play just killed us tonight,” according to Ducks’ defenseman J.J. Daigneault).

The Ducks let the puck linger in their own zone too much. In one sequence, Modano lost his stick, skated back to the Dallas bench for a new one and returned and the Ducks still hadn’t cleared the puck.

They aren’t doing a very good job of impressing the home crowd. “We go out on the road, we don’t have to put on a show,” Daigneault said. “We play a good, basic game.”

Ducks’ Coach Pierre Page had another reason for his team’s deficiencies at home.

“If you’re down 2-0 on the road, you’ve got nobody booing you,” he said.

The fans want to get behind this team. They showed it a week ago when they gave Selanne a loud salute for his first-period hat trick and then tried to stir a rally in the final minutes after the Ducks had blown a pair of two-goal leads to fall behind.

But man, are they finicky. They booed loudly Sunday.

They were back to chanting “We want Paul.” One fan even yelled, “We want Wilson.”

Don’t worry. Ron Wilson will be here with the Washington Capitals on Dec. 12. I doubt we can say the same for Kariya.

All we know for sure after Sunday’s activity is that Ken Hill will be present when pitchers and catchers report to spring training.