Paddling Upstream Is Trait of Ducks

This has been a week full of announcements for the Mighty Ducks.

They have a new flagship radio station, a new minor league affiliate in Huntington, W.Va., and a new president.

All that work and no meaningful progress. They’re still without a coach, without a tough defenseman and without another scoring threat besides Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne.

Their only significant personnel move was to name Pierre Gauthier president. Didn’t they already have a president?

And isn’t this the same Pierre Gauthier who used to be the assistant general manager under Vice President/General Manager Jack Ferreira? Two and a half years later he’s back as Ferreira’s superior, and that sure says a lot about what the Ducks have done with Ferreira at the helm.

Like Ferreira, they’re regressing while everyone else moves forward. Everyone in their newly realigned division has made a significant addition this off-season. The Dallas Stars signed free agent Brett Hull, the Kings brought in defenseman Steve Duchesne, the Phoenix Coyotes got defenseman Jyrki Lumme and the San Jose Sharks acquired Kariya’s good buddy, Gary Suter.

The Ducks put one toe into the free-agent waters and said, “Oooh! Too expensive!”

So a guy like Ron Francis goes to Carolina for $20 million for four years. Sure, he’s 35 and he probably won’t be too productive in the last year of the contract. But he’ll contribute more than Pierre Page, whom the Ducks will pay almost $1 million to not coach the team over the next two years. And chances are Francis would look more than adequate when playing between Kariya and Selanne.

Francis rejoined some former teammates when he went to the Hurricanes. But when Francis played with them, they were in Hartford as the Whalers, with a different coach and general manager and different ownership. So there couldn’t have been too much sentiment behind his decision. And this wasn’t about playing for a winner, because Francis’ Pittsburgh Penguins are much closer to a Stanley Cup than the Hurricanes. It couldn’t have been about atmosphere, not with those small Friends & Family gatherings at Carolina home games.

It was about money, the one thing the Ducks could provide if they wanted to. Only they don’t. They say they can’t jack up the payroll without jacking up ticket prices, but the cost of attending a Duck game has already passed the “reasonable” or “affordable” phase, so they might as well tack on another couple of bucks and put out a team worth watching.

Explaining why the Ducks had to stay within their budget used to be Tony Tavares’ job. Now he’s relinquishing control of the team’s day-to-day operations. We’ll see how long that arrangement lasts. This was a guy who was so hands-on that he fixed a faulty audio setup himself before a news conference last season.

It probably wouldn’t hurt to have another layer between Tavares and the coaching staff, just to keep personal differences from becoming too big a factor.

The Ducks fired Ron Wilson because he blabbed too much to the media. Page probably opened the door for his own exit with a self-critical examination of the team’s off-season moves after a game in March. And Butch Goring wouldn’t have lasted a month if he remained as candid as he was while telling everyone that he turned the Ducks job down because they lowballed him with a $400,000-a-year offer.

Coaches would rather stay in the IHL than coach for the Ducks. Players would rather go to NHL outposts like Carolina than play for the Ducks. Can it get more insulting? If you’ve seen next season’s schedule, you know the answer is yes.

They play their first game at the Washington Capitals. Ron Wilson’s Washington Capitals. Someone in the NHL office must really want to stick it to Tavares. The Capitals probably will shine a spotlight on Wilson while he hoists the team’s Eastern Conference championship banner to the top of the MCI Center.

The Ducks’ coach--assuming they’ve found a coach by then--will be their third in as many years.

Maybe he’ll even do the same thing Page did and wind up appreciating and praising the job Wilson did with a thin talent base.

If the Ducks can fire their first and (if only by default) most successful coach, if they can fire the coach they said they wanted all along in Page, it certainly doesn’t bode well for Coach TBA.

Not many good feelings at all around the Ducks. They haven’t played a game since April 29 and won’t start the new season until Oct. 10, yet it somehow seems like they’re losing.

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* COACH STILL WANTED: After getting nowhere in talks with Butch Goring, the Ducks are retracing their steps. C8