Coach Needs to See Comrie to Believe It

If you were thinking Coach Mike Babcock was sitting in his office Thursday -- or any of the last few days -- planning on who would be playing on a line with center Mike Comrie, you would be wrong.

“No, I haven’t done that,” he said.

Babcock has learned about expectations. Though the Ducks came to terms with Edmonton on a deal for Comrie, an added and unprecedented complication stopped the trade in its tracks. Edmonton is asking for a cash settlement of $2.535 million from Comrie.

Babcock has one way of defining here and not-quite-here.

“I always figure out [it is] when you see the whites of their eyes,” he said. “It was the same when I was a college coach. Everyone was always coming. You’re recruiting them like crazy. Over the phone, everyone was so sweet, the parents. They’re going to four different schools.

“Till I saw them, I didn’t believe.”

He thought about it a little longer and amended that point.

“Till I saw them and they got a girlfriend, I didn’t believe they were coming.”

Comrie, in an Edmonton Journal interview, called the Oilers’ move “a little bit unethical.”

“I’ve seen where teams pay to get a player, like when Los Angeles paid to get Wayne Gretzky. But this has never happened before from a player’s standpoint,” Comrie told the Journal, adding that he might play for Canada at the Spengler Cup in Davos, Switzerland, to get some playing beyond practicing.

If nothing is completed by Dec. 19, he would make that move, because NHL rosters are frozen from then to Dec. 27 and the tournament is Dec. 26-31.

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Babcock said that Martin Gerber will be in goal at San Jose on Saturday, making his third consecutive start.

Defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh (bruised ribs) and left wing Rob Niedermayer (groin injury) are not expected to play against the Sharks, Babcock said. Ozolinsh didn’t practice Thursday, and though Niedermayer did, he apparently thought he hurt himself.

But Babcock wasn’t alarmed.

“Lots of times, when you’ve been injured, you do something, you tweak it for a second and you think it’s a big deal,” Babcock said. “The next day you come in and nothing happened.”

Defenseman Keith Carney cut practice short because of back spasms.