Gauthier Has a New Focus

If we get lucky, the Mighty Ducks will turn out to be the Ottawa Senators.

As Roy Mlakar, president of the Senators, explains it, “The Ottawa Senators are not the norm. Last year, we were seventh in the NHL in paid attendance, but we’re in the 26th-largest market. We were third in the league in total number of suites sold. We had the best ratio of wins compared to salaries paid. Pierre Gauthier might not have been here last year, but what we did was because of Pierre Gauthier.

“A lot of GMs can take a page out of the Gauthier book. We have not changed at all how we operate since Pierre left and we will not. We will not.”

Who is Pierre Gauthier? The name rings a bell, right?

In Gauthier, the Mighty Ducks might have the savviest general manager in all the NHL. Certainly he’d be the front-runner to win honors as best GM in Southern California, but that is about as prestigious as being the best surfer in Minneapolis.

Mlakar, who spent seven years in the Kings’ organization, says he has seen no one better at evaluating talent than Gauthier--”He has the best book on prospects you can imagine,” Mlakar says--and the best grasp of hockey economics, both for today and for the future.

That is what we’d hoped to talk to Gauthier about. About the courage he showed last year when he spoke out early and often about what he perceives is the dangerous way that player salaries are escalating when revenues can’t seem to keep pace.

“We pay players too much money for the revenues we have,” Gauthier said last year.

And, “It doesn’t add up anymore. The balance of happiness is not correct. We’re paying players too much for our revenues.”

Or, to continue the theme, “There are three parties to be kept happy: players, owners and fans. The product is better. We’ve adjusted. There’s good news in that area. And TV is better. But we’re at the limit on ticket prices, so fans aren’t happy.

“You don’t see families at games anymore. Owners are losing huge amounts of money and we have franchises in trouble, so owners aren’t happy. Only the players are happy. The players are too happy for what the fans are getting and what the owners are getting.”

Tough talk. Brave talk. You would think Gauthier might be afraid that when it comes time to sign his own players to contract extensions or to recruit free agents to the Arrowhead Pond that players and their agents would throw these quotes back at Gauthier?

“Well,” Gauthier said as the 1999-2000 season started, “I’m not going to talk about finances anymore. I’m tired of talking about that. People want to hear about our great game. The league is more competitive than it’s ever been. There’s not a game you can point to and say you know who will win. That’s what I want to talk about.”

Gauthier says he stands by what he said last year. “People know where I stand,” he says. He’s just not going to say it again.

And maybe that’s a good thing. Why bother? Nothing has changed. The NHL doesn’t have newfound millions of TV dollars rolling in, no big, new arenas currently the works. So Gauthier will just go about running his team his way.

Just like he did in Ottawa.

“They used to call Pierre ‘the ghost,’ ” Mlakar says. “The media, especially. Pierre would disappear a lot. Then he would just reappear. For days you couldn’t find him, then you’d turn around and there he was.”

Mlakar hired Gauthier in Ottawa. The Senators were the absolute dregs, “in terrible shape,” Mlakar says. “It was December of 1995. December is not a good time to be hiring, the middle of the season.

“In December you have three choices. You can hire a retread, someone who’s just been fired. Or you find a coach who aspires to be a GM. Or you look for the best young assistant GM you can find. That’s what we did.”

Mlakar hired Gauthier away from the Mighty Ducks. “You want a guy who has vision,” Mlakar says, “and I knew Pierre had been the architect of the Ducks’ first five-year plan. He knew how to work a budget. He’s a visionary. He’s extremely well-organized. One of the things he does so well, he knows where his next third- and fourth-liners will come from before he has them on the team.”

But Gauthier’s player book was not the only thing that impressed Mlakar. “It was Pierre’s second week on the job,” Mlakar says, “and we’re playing the Kings. I go sit down in the last row of the press box and, all of a sudden, Pierre says, ‘Come here, I’ve got to talk to you.’ So we talk. Pierre says, ‘The coach, you gotta fire the coach. I’ve watched him enough, he isn’t ready for the NHL.’ I said, ‘Geez, Pierre, you haven’t given me a lot of time.’ But Pierre was adamant.

“Within 24 hours Pierre had negotiated a deal and we got Jacques Martin, who was the best assistant in the NHL. That’s how good Pierre is.”

Mlakar says he is not surprised that Gauthier spoke so eloquently last year about fiscal responsibility and he also is not surprised this year that Gauthier has decided to shut up about money. “He thinks he made his point,” Mlakar says, “and now he’ll just do what he thinks is right.”

What Gauthier thinks is right is attracting new fans. He notices how many Orange County kids travel on roller-blades and participate in in-line skating. “Kids all over the place are skating,” Gauthier says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s on ice or not. I look at our fans here in Orange County and everyone loves the Ducks. Kids love the Ducks.

“So I thought it was important that the people who loved the Ducks knew what the situation was so that their expectations might be a little more realistic. But now, [as] the season starts, we shouldn’t be talking about dollars and cents anymore. Let’s talk about the players and the game.”

Case closed. That’s how Gauthier wants it.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com