Kariya’s Season Quickly Melting

The Mighty Ducks--closer today to last place than a playoff berth--appear resigned to completing the season without left wing Paul Kariya, who continues to suffer from post-concussion syndrome.

“The team should start thinking that way,” right wing Teemu Selanne said. “We can’t afford to wait for Paul [to return to the lineup]. We have to go with the lineup we have available.”

Kariya has been plagued by frequent headaches and dizziness, although he told Selanne he felt better after taking a three-day vacation alone last weekend.

“At this point, I would say this is absolutely not a career-ending injury,” team doctor Craig Milhouse said.

Milhouse wants Kariya to be free of symptoms a day for each day he has experienced dizziness and headaches. Since Kariya has been sidelined more than a month, Milhouse wants him to have a month free of symptoms before resuming play.

And once Kariya is free of symptoms, Milhouse plans to have him examined by several other doctors to gain a consensus as to when he should be cleared.

Kariya was not at practice Tuesday and was unavailable for comment.

Although the Ducks remained defiant about their playoff chances, Kariya’s second prolonged absence this season makes their qualifying a longshot.

He sat out the first 32 games because of a contract dispute and has been sidelined since getting cross-checked in the jaw Feb. 1 by Chicago Blackhawk defenseman Gary Suter.

The Ducks are 20-30-9 and trail Edmonton by five points for the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot.

Kariya’s injury is the latest in a series of events that have jeopardized the Ducks’ status as an upper-echelon team in the NHL.

Team President Tony Tavares refused Tuesday to give Coach Pierre Page and General Manager Jack Ferreira a vote of confidence. Or one of no-confidence.

“Every time you give someone a vote of confidence, it’s like you’re kissing them on the lips on their way out the door,” Tavares said. “I’m focused more on player-personnel issues right now. . . . [But] suffice to say, I’ve turned up the heat. The bottom line is, we’ve got some problems and we’re addressing them.”

How has it come to this? How did a team powered by Kariya and Selanne and supported by a cast of gritty no-names fall from among the NHL’s elite eight last May to the brink of missing the playoffs?

The start of the Ducks’ troubles can be traced to the May 20 firing of Ron Wilson after four seasons as coach. They increased because of Kariya’s 32-game absence to start the season. And they continue today because Kariya, Selanne and Travis Green--their top three offensive players--are sidelined by injuries.

“Certainly, it’s been a season of big changes,” said goalie Guy Hebert, the only remaining member of the Ducks’ inaugural lineup in 1993. “It started in the summer and has just continued. Obviously, it’s been disruptive. We haven’t found our identity. We haven’t come to a point where we’ve all come together as a team. We’re not on the same page.

“Last year, we took a long time to find ourselves, so I guess it shouldn’t surprise anyone. I think for the guys who were here last year, who had such high hopes about this season . . . well, there are a lot of new guys here now who don’t know what we went through to be successful last season.”

Said winger Warren Rychel: “There’s lots of kids in the lineup and not so much depth. But we can’t feel sorry for ourselves. I can’t really speak about management, but there’s been a lot of guys in and out of here this year.”

Tavares also has watched players come and go and has wondered if too much change hasn’t contributed to the Ducks’ lack of cohesiveness.

He also said he has commissioned a study of previous drafts and concluded that the team must do better with its selections in the second and third rounds. He is unhappy with the Ducks’ defensive corps and is concerned about the lack of depth in the minor league system.

“Too many of our defensemen are fourth, fifth or sixth defensemen,” he said. “I can’t tell you there’s one guy in our system who makes you say, ‘There’s our stud defenseman.’ And where’s our young goaltender?”

With the exception of the Selanne deal in February, 1996, Tavares believes most of the Ducks’ trades have been “spit for spit.” Too often, he said, the Ducks traded away gritty players in the hopes of getting a scorer in return.

“What’s happened this season is this group hasn’t come together as a team,” he added. “You don’t get that sense they’re a team. It’s been a tumultuous year for us. There was a great deal of turmoil with the Ron Wilson thing, and then Paul holding out. We’ve just never recovered.

“Clearly, Ron was a players’ coach. Pierre is not. We’ve not fully adjusted to that. Paul wasn’t here at the beginning of the season. We didn’t adjust to that either.”

Left unsaid is that the Ducks have only themselves to blame for Wilson’s departure and Kariya’s holdout. Both situations could have been handled better by the Ducks, who sacked Wilson but initially would not say why and played such hardball with Kariya that he considered retirement from the NHL.

“I’m not looking to place blame,” Tavares said. “I’m focused on what’s wrong, so I can fix it. How can we make it come together quickly? We’re not at a point where we need to retrench and let the kids play. I’m more focused on finding the missing ingredients to make this a playoff team.”