REBUILDING PROJECT

Pierre Gauthier is either a saint or a sinner, depending on your point of view.

Maybe he’s both. Perhaps he’s neither.

What’s certain is that he has been given one of the toughest jobs in the NHL. Or to be more precise, it’s not the job that’s so difficult, but the immediate task at hand: making the Mighty Ducks winners again and doing it without breaking the bank.

If we’ve learned nothing else in five years about the Walt Disney Co.’s involvement with professional sports, it’s that money is everything.

Gauthier, named Duck president and general manager last summer, has been down this road before and knows the formula well.

Win without a fat payroll. No blockbuster trades. Few ballyhooed free-agent signings.

“We’ve got to be realistic,” Gauthier said. “I’m not a guy for big promises. The league and the Western Conference are very close. At this point in its history, this is a middle-of-the-road franchise. How many teams are significantly better off? Not too many. How many are significantly worse off? Only a few.”

Gauthier knows the Ducks.

He was there at the beginning, when he was named assistant general manager of the expansion team in 1993. He then joined the Ottawa Senators to become general manager in 1995.

In both jobs, he was asked to help turn his team from laughingstock to legit and to accomplish the feat with the aforementioned restrictions.

The difference was that the Ducks seemed to have a good thing going right away. They had quality players to work with, a bright young coach in Ron Wilson and a sparkling new arena.

The expansion Senators were a mess. Their original draft in 1992 was almost worthless, they went through a number of coaches and were hindered by being based in a small-market Canadian city.

With Gauthier’s help the Ducks were pointed in a direction that would eventually take them to their first winning season and a Stanley Cup playoff appearance in 1996-97. With his leadership in Ottawa, the Senators reached the playoffs in 1996-97 and 1997-98.

That much is fact.

Suspicions in Ottawa

What’s more difficult to discern are the circumstances surrounding his departure from Anaheim on Dec. 11, 1995, and his subsequent return on July 16, 1998.

Gauthier’s motives have been questioned by Ottawa fans and reporters and he agrees that some of his answers strained his credibility.

Tony Tavares, president of Disney’s sports operation in Anaheim, has heard the rumors and listened to the speculation.

He discounts theories floated by Canadian reporters that suggest the Ogden Corp., which operates the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim and the Corel Centre in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata, was behind Gauthier’s moves.

He scoffed at the notion that the Ducks allowed Gauthier to go to Ottawa to rescue the Senators just as long as he was able to return to Anaheim as soon as the franchise appeared to be running smoothly.

“First, the suggestion that Ogden played a role in his return is pure speculation,” Tavares said. “Second, his return certainly raised eyebrows, but it was not orchestrated in any way. Roy Mlakar [Ottawa president] and Rod Bryden [Ottawa chairman] know it was above board.”

However, Tavares acknowledged, “There were complex issues with Pierre leaving Ottawa.”

The bottom line, according to Tavares: “Is someone that great and that bright going to do something that obvious?”

The question has been raised again and again since Gauthier tearfully announced his resignation in Ottawa, however.

Gauthier said family concerns were at the root of his decision to quit. He would take some time off, explore life away from hockey, then think about returning at some point in the future.

And, oh, by the way, he and the family were returning to the Irvine residence they had owned since he was originally hired by the Ducks in 1993.

When Gauthier accepted the job as Duck president--effectively replacing Tavares--only 17 days later, the pique of fans and reporters in Ottawa was remarkable.

Mlakar, who did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this story, was portrayed as naive and stupid.

“Roy Malarkey,” the Ottawa Sun’s Chris Stevenson called him. “He let his successful general manager make what amounts to a lateral move and didn’t get a blessed thing for him. Teams have extracted first-round draft picks from other teams in exchange for coaches or general managers in the past.

“This time? Nada. Zip.”

It was one thing when Gauthier said on June 29, “I’m not going to Anaheim to work for the Mighty Ducks. I don’t have the right to steal anybody’s job, certainly not the job of one of my best friends [then Duck GM Jack Ferreira].”

And quite another when he appeared with Tavares and Ferreira at a July 16 news conference announcing his hiring in Anaheim. Three weeks later, he made matters worse in Ottawa by announcing he would replace Ferreira as Duck general manager.

“Gauthier got out of Ottawa because the getting was good,” Stevenson wrote. “He looked like a genius after the Senators upset the New Jersey Devils in the first round [of the playoffs] last spring. His stock was never higher. Now, for anybody who really believes in reputation and integrity, it’s never been lower.”

Gauthier was prepared for the barbs from Ottawa, but insists he has done nothing wrong. He says he left with the blessing of Mlakar and Bryden.

“I was a free agent,” Gauthier said. “I had a lot of opportunities around the league. It was an amicable separation. I made it clear when I sat down with Roy Mlakar and the owners that I was going to leave to be with my family. It wasn’t going to be a good situation if I stayed. I was going to make sure the organization didn’t get hurt.”

Ottawa was 33-165-18 in the three seasons before Gauthier was hired. The Senators were 83-128-35 in the three seasons he was general manager.

Rehiring him in Anaheim was a no-brainer as far as Tavares was concerned. Since Ottawa didn’t object by asking for compensation, all Tavares needed was a couple of phone calls to work out a deal with Gauthier.

“I would say he is, No. 1, highly qualified,” Tavares said. “No. 2, he does a good job of emotionally detaching himself from decisions. No. 3, he comes up with a plan and sticks with it and isn’t swayed by anything or anyone if he knows he’s right.”

The news of Gauthier’s hiring was hardly a shock, although it came as the Ducks were poised to hire Butch Goring to replace Pierre Page as coach. But Goring turned down the Ducks and they hired Craig Hartsburg, their No. 2 choice, instead. Page led the Ducks to a 26-43-13 record, their lowest winning percentage in five seasons, and was fired June 15.

Gauthier’s return capped a period in which the franchise seemed directionless. In June, Ferreira fired Page and appeared to waste a first-round draft pick on a Russian defenseman with a questionable reputation. Ferreira also was unable to sign a free agent, failing in his vow to be active in the marketplace.

“I was hoping for a [standout center like] Ron Francis or a mean, strong defenseman,” goaltender Guy Hebert said. “[But] I think there were a lot of internal problems and no one had the power to pull off the moves.”

Hiring Gauthier seemed to solve the Ducks’ inertia.

He completed the hiring of Hartsburg and a four-player trade with the Carolina Hurricanes that brought popular enforcer Stu Grimson back to Anaheim. He also signed free-agent defenseman Fredrik Olausson from the Pittsburgh Penguins.

“I think Jack Ferreira did a great job for the Mighty Ducks. I think that’s been overlooked,” Hebert said. “Any team is going to go through growing pains. At this point, I definitely think we’re headed in a better direction. There have been a lot of changes, but there were a lot of changes that needed to be made.”

For better or worse, Gauthier is the man who made those moves and will be charged with making many more over the course of his five-year contract with the Ducks.

“We want to be better than last year,” Gauthier said. “We should be better. We want to keep getting better. Notice I didn’t make any [specific] predictions. I have expectations, though. I want to get better.”