Ducks Move Fast, Fill Void at General Manager

Al Coates, senior vice president of business operations for the Mighty Ducks, has been asked to step in as the team’s interim general manager, replacing Bryan Murray, who was hired as Ottawa’s coach Tuesday.

Coates takes over on the fly, with the draft June 26-27 and the July 1 deadline to make qualifying offers near, as well as a murky free-agent signing period in July and August. He also must acknowledge the desire by the Walt Disney Co., which owns the team, to reduce the payroll.

All of that while the Ducks are for sale and a lockout in September appears increasingly likely.

“I’m fine with that,” Coates said. “There is a brand new world ahead of us and we need to work toward something a little more different than we are now.

“Clearly, we had some alterations to make here anyway. We think there has to be a change and we need to work toward what that change is going to be.”

The Ducks had a payroll of about $54 million last season and have committed $34 million to 14 players for next season. That group doesn’t include such core players as Keith Carney, Rob Niedermayer, Ruslan Salei and Vitaly Vishnevski.

The team has a two-year option on Carney, the Ducks’ top defenseman. Niedermayer, Salei and Vishnevski are all restricted free agents. Coates said he could not talk about specific players at this point.

“I need to first sit down with Chuck Fletcher [director of hockey operations] and [Coach] Mike Babcock and get a more general sense of what our people want the team to look like when we start up again, hopefully in September,” Coates said. “It’s not the right time to get into any individuals right now.”

Also unclear are Sergei Fedorov’s feelings about Murray’s departure. Murray, Fedorov’s first NHL coach, signed him to a five-year, $40-million contract last summer. That contract, however, includes an out-clause after the second season, meaning Fedorov could walk away from the Ducks as a free agent after next season, or whenever the next season is.

Murray, meanwhile, was introduced as Ottawa’s coach at a news conference Tuesday. He said he’d had a desire to return to coaching -- he spent 23 seasons as an NHL coach -- and wanted to return home. His parents live in the Ottawa area and he and his wife own a home near there.

“For 25 years, I have moved around and moved family,” Murray said. “This will be more of a home base.”

He said he’d been happy in his time with the Ducks.

“The only issue I had, having gone through it [as general manager] in Florida, was, they are obviously trying to sell the team. And to sell the team, finances have to be shape,” Murray said. “That is what the potential buyer is interested in. We were working on a budget, trying to get it adjusted a little bit.”

Still, being back in Canada was important to Murray.

“I wanted very badly to come back to coach,” Murray said at a news conference. “I wanted to come back to a hockey country, where hockey meant something.”

Coates, who was hired to run the Ducks’ business side last spring, said he was not concerned whether the job was interim or permanent. Nor, he said, was he worried about running both sides of the operation, especially with the staff in place.

Fletcher, director of hockey operations, David McNab, assistant general manager, and Tim Murray, director of player personnel, all are under contract for next season. Coates said that he did not anticipate staff layoffs, although other teams have gone that route to streamline for the possible lockout.

Disney may already have shed itself of an executive salary. If Coates’ interim tag is removed, he will operate both the franchise’s business and hockey sides. Disney officials refused an interview request.

Coates has spent 34 years in hockey, many with NHL teams. He has handled the business and hockey sides of an NHL team simultaneously before, as the Calgary Flames’ executive vice president and general manager from 1995 to 2000.

Coates takes over a Duck team that finished a disappointing 12th in the Western Conference in 2003-04 after making the Stanley Cup finals last season. He must massage the roster while both sides in the labor dispute prepare for a possible lockout.

“I don’t think this will affect us at all,” Coates said. “We’re doing really well on season-ticket renewals and our business contacts. I know what is sitting out there. It looms over everyone in the league.”