Ferreira Can’t Duck the Responsibility

Coach Pierre Page essentially hanged himself and his bosses last week when he blamed the Mighty Ducks’ woes on their inability to build on the success they enjoyed last season.

It’s a collective failure, certainly. But it begins with the repeated mistakes of General Manager Jack Ferreira.

The Ducks’ victory over Colorado on Sunday was their 10th in 39 games since Nov. 28. They have no plan, no vision to inspire hope because Ferreira has traded flotsam for jetsam too many times, misjudged too many players and repeatedly overestimated his team’s talent.

Worst of all, he has failed to assemble a decent supporting cast for Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne, two of the NHL’s best young talents.

It’s rare to have one real scorer, let alone two, and easier to find second- and third-line forwards. Ferreira hasn’t done that. Selanne has scored 27.2% of the Ducks’ goals, close to the modern NHL record of 27.7% set in 1990-91 by Brett Hull--and as much a condemnation of his teammates as a commendation of his own feats.

Scott Young has been disappointing. Tomas Sandstrom’s struggles with Detroit last spring should have told the Ducks not to sign him. Sean Pronger can’t finish. Ted Drury and Warren Rychel aren’t going to blossom into scorers but they came cheap, and the penny-pinchers at Disney love that.

No Duck defenseman would be more than a fifth or sixth defensemen on another team. Dmitri Mironov plays 28 minutes a game, far more than his talents merit, but Page has no alternative. David Karpa’s toughness doesn’t make up for his mistakes. Jason Marshall and Ruslan Salei are promising but erratic. Doug Houda is merely a warm body, but years of poor drafting haven’t produced anything better.

Scoring has declined in the NHL, but the Ducks’ goals-against average has risen from 2.80 last season to 3.05, and their goalies’ save percentage has fallen from .913 to .897. Mikhail Shtalenkov and Guy Hebert aren’t entirely to blame.

What are the differences from last season? Kariya has been largely absent, starting with a 32-game holdout. The Ducks, who have made hefty profits every season, have no excuse for not signing him to a long-term deal. He’s their best asset. A good business plan includes spending money to improve the product.

The other big change is the coach. Ferreira and club President Tony Tavares put their egos before the team’s welfare when they didn’t rehire Ron Wilson, who was a good motivator and made the most of what he had. Page has little to work with and has made nothing of it. Ferreira stuck out his neck to hire his pal, Page, whose coaching resume is uninspiring, and so far it seems like another entry on a long list of errors.

It’s too late to salvage this season, but not too late to think of the future. The first step must be replacing Ferreira.

LAW AND DISORDER

Frontier justice has taken over in the NHL.

Team A takes out Team B’s top scorer with a dirty hit, so the victim’s teammates mug a skill player on Team A and everyone brawls until no one is left standing. It happened last Friday in the Ducks’ game at Dallas, and it will happen again unless the NHL suspends Dallas defenseman Craig Ludwig for at least 10 games for leaping off his feet to elbow Selanne in the head near the end of a Dallas rout.

Selanne was lucky to have only a sore neck and headache, not a concussion.

“Those kinds of hits, there’s no place in hockey for them,” he said. “It was 5-1. Nothing special had happened. . . . It was a call for the league. If these things don’t stop, you’re going to see more of these [brawls].

“There’s not enough respect among players. We all do the same job. We all love the job. You don’t want to get these serious injuries, especially hits to the head. . . . Playing tough, physical is fine. It’s a totally different thing to play dirty.”

The Ducks’ Brent Severyn is no angel, having smashed Darryl Sydor’s face into the ice in retaliation, but Ludwig created that climate. And maybe Ludwig would have held back if he had feared stiffer punishment than the four-game suspension Chicago’s Gary Suter got for a cross-check to Kariya’s jaw Feb. 1.

The next victim of a dirty hit to the head may not be as lucky as Selanne. It’s time for the NHL to be decisive and deter a potential tragedy.

OILERS STILL GUSHING

The Edmonton Oilers apparently will stay put, thanks to a group of local investors who countered a $70-million offer from Les Alexander, owner of the Houston Rockets. It’s a nice story of how folks pitched in to come up with $50 million, but there is no guarantee of a happy ending.

Pierre Lacroix, general manager of the Colorado Avalanche--formerly the Quebec Nordiques--knows what the Oilers are going through. He hopes they can avoid what happened to the Nordiques, who were sold and moved to Denver in 1995, but he’s not optimistic.

“I’m a Canadian and I’d be sad if they leave, but if not enough people come and the costs to operate the team keep going up, I don’t know how they can stay there,” he said.

ROCKET’S RED GLARE

Maurice “Rocket” Richard’s illness is front-page news in Montreal and is uniting the people of Quebec more than any political cause ever could.

Richard, 76, has an inoperable, cancerous tumor in his abdomen. Known for his fierce concentration and blazing eyes, he was the first NHL player to score 50 goals in a season and 500 in his career. He retired from the Montreal Canadiens in 1960, but he’s still idolized in Quebec and points well south.

Serge Gagne, the official scorer at Duck home games, left Montreal years ago. But when his mother called him from Montreal last week to tell him about Richard, he instantly shared Quebeckers’ sorrow.

“I was too young to see him play, but I remember reading about him,” Gagne said. “It’s the pride, being French-Canadian. He’s representative of the whole people.”

SLAP SHOTS

The Colorado Avalanche probably won’t re-sign defenseman Uwe Krupp when he becomes a free agent. The Kings like him, but his back problems make him a big risk. . . . Colorado center Joe Sakic, who injured his knee playing for Canada at the Nagano Olympics, resumed skating but is several weeks from playing. . . . Flyer center Eric Lindros still has post-concussion symptoms, such as sleeping most of the day. He probably will miss four weeks, twice the length of the initial prediction. His brother’s history--Brett Lindros had to retire because of the effects of repeated concussions--makes him especially cautious.

The New York Rangers, about to drop out of the East playoff picture, will try to trade Mike Keane, Brian Skrudland and Jeff Beukeboom and start a youth movement. . . . The line of Dmitri Khristich, Jason Allison and Sergei Samsonov is averaging more than five points a game for the Boston Bruins. That’s helping Samsonov close the gap on rookie scoring leader and early Calder Trophy favorite Mike Johnson of Toronto. Johnson, who has had trouble adjusting to the NHL after the short college season at Bowling Green, went 15 games without a goal before scoring against the Kings last Thursday.

Time marches on: Bobby Orr turns 50 on Friday. . . . The Kings could still finish fourth in the West. Of their remaining 16 games, only seven are against teams that are over .500. “I’m not surprised,” goalie Stephane Fiset said. “We’re playing well and doing simple things well. When we work hard like this, we can beat anybody.” . . . Colorado Coach Marc Crawford, frustrated by a 3-6 slump, planned to take a few days off this week. The team got Monday off but some players are due back today. “I know there’s guys that maybe need a mental break,” he said. “Other guys need to dig down and suck it up.”