As Attendance Contracts, Ducks Feeling Expansive

General Manager Pierre Gauthier has a clear message for the dwindling number of Mighty Duck fans.

“What we’re asking of people and businesses is to support us during these transition years, while we go from an expansion team to a contending team,” Gauthier has said.

That, actually, has been a round-trip. The Ducks, an expansion team in 1993-94, reached the second round of the Western Conference playoffs in 1996-97. Last season, they finished behind expansion teams Columbus and Minnesota.

In the first seasons, employees who used the words “expansion team” were fined $50. Duck officials now seem ready to embrace the description, starting from the bottom after the worst season in franchise history.

They have a new coach in Bryan Murray, the team’s third in the last nine months.

They have brought in new players, hoping to beef up their defense.

They are sound of body, with key players who missed chunks of last season fit and ready ... at least until the next injury.

They have a season opener Thursday night in Boston, which will be their first chance to shed that expansion-team look that haunted them last season.

“All of us want to prove something this year--the players, the coaches, the management,” center Steve Rucchin said. “Last year was not an indication of what this team can do. We’ve got to win the fans back. We’ve got the guys here to do it.”

The Ducks do still have right wing Paul Kariya, one of the best in the NHL, and Oleg Tverdovsky, one of the league’s better defensemen. They picked up veteran defensemen Keith Carney and Jason York. They have two legitimate goalies for the first time, Steve Shields and Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

Management is banking on those players, and hoping that recent drafts and trades will soon begin to pay off, that young prospects will develop and push the Ducks up in the standings.

The Ducks’ attendance has dropped 21%, and their season-ticket base, once at 12,500, now stands a little above 8,000. The Ducks have shuffled players and fired coaches. Another flop could bring changes a bit higher in the organization.

Tony Tavares, the team governor and spokesman for Disney, said he would not speculate on the future of Duck management.

“Frankly, we’re not going into the season contemplating being bad,” he said. “We’re going into the season with optimism, that we’re doing things to make the franchise better. You’re asking me to look into a crystal ball and I can’t possibly do that.”

Kariya, the team’s captain, said that the team has to make the playoffs this season. Gauthier refused to go that far.

“I’m not in the prediction business,” Gauthier said. “I think the fans will see improvement.”

The Ducks’ situation, their recent past and immediate future, can be summed up in two names: German Titov and Timo Parssinen.

Titov, the marquee free agent of a year ago, was coming to create a second scoring line, Gauthier claimed. Instead, he was the face of the Ducks’ failure in 2000-2001. Titov starts this season as a fourth-line center ... when he is allowed to play.

Parssinen, a name that doesn’t mean very much outside Helsinki, will be one of the young players to step up and fill key roles, the Ducks hope. He has never played a regular-season game in the NHL, but will be at left wing on the top line when the season starts.

So the Ducks will try to bury their mistakes and problems on the fourth line, while pushing their hopes and dreams front and center.

“I think any team that doesn’t make the playoffs, there are lots of questions,” Murray said. “A new coach comes in because some guy had to pay the price. Some players lose their jobs over what happened in the past. It’s easy to be negative. It’s real easy to be negative, go in and be critical. I try to be the opposite and point out the good things.”

Well, maybe the good things first.

Gauthier spent March through July wheeling and dealing. He did that during the summer of 2000 too. This time, though, he sought better quality.

In March, he sent popular Teemu Selanne to San Jose for Shields and left wing Jeff Friesen. Shields has won the goalie job. The Ducks expect Friesen to rebound from a sub-par, 48-point season.

Carney came from Phoenix in a trade, giving the Ducks a button-down veteran on defense. York, a defenseman with offensive savvy, signed as a free agent.

Parssinen, Samuel Pahlsson and Petr Tenkrat are young players who have shown potential. Murray hopes they will provide depth, if not goals.

Rucchin, who missed 66 games with injuries last season, and left wing Mike Leclerc, who missed 28, , start the season fit, giving the Ducks two players to bump and grind in front of the net.

All those elements fit into a best-case scenario that lands the Ducks in the playoffs, even if Duck scenarios have rarely been “best-case.”

“There is a different attitude this year,” Tverdovsky said. “We have some new guys, some experienced guys, who brought in this attitude. We’re building a team. We feel good about ourselves right now.”

That feel-good attitude could unravel, as it did last season.

The Ducks are counting on the development of younger players. Parssinen and Pahlsson, both 24, are being asked to skate with Kariya, who can elevate play. But Parssinen has never played in the NHL. Pahlsson, 24, has one season behind him.

The Parssinen-Pahlsson-Kariya line clicked in exhibitions, scoring nine of the team’s 20 goals. But that was in exhibitions.

“Things are going to get a lot more intense when the season starts,” Parssinen said.

Rucchin and Leclerc have not been able to stay in the lineup the last two seasons.

Rucchin missed 11 games because of a staph infection in his ankle in 1999-2000, which might have kept the Ducks out of the playoffs. He was struck in the face by a puck during a game last season and played only two of the final 68 games.

Leclerc started fast in 1999-2000, then missed 11 games after having elbow surgery and never got back on track. He missed 28 games because of injuries last season.

“You definitely don’t want to use that as an excuse,” Tverdovsky said. “Teams overcome injuries. I guess we didn’t have the depth to pull it off.”

Whether they do this season remains to be seen. But one thing is clear, even to the players.

“We missed the playoffs the last couple years,” left wing Marty McInnis said. “The novelty of being an expansion team has worn off.”