Developing Character : Wilson’s Role in Transforming the Franchise Isn’t Lost on the Mighty Ducks

ANAHEIM —  The Mighty Ducks’ season is edging closer to its last gasp, but Duck Coach Ron Wilson isn’t out of breath yet.

The barbs tossed the Ducks’ way these days get answered.

So Kings’ President Rogie Vachon said Barry Melrose was fired partly because he couldn’t beat the Ducks. Wilson says three teams have used the same logic, and it doesn’t add up.

NHL referees have gotten an earful, and so will anybody else who doesn’t acknowledge to his satisfaction that the Ducks are an evolving franchise, one to be contended with and not joked about anymore.

“Our philosophy as a team is to be pins, not pincushions,” Wilson said.

The back-and-forth with the Kings--the Ducks’ opponent this afternoon in what might prove a do-or-die game for both teams--has heated up a rivalry.

The Kings’ Marty McSorley has added fuel to the fire, as has Dave Karpa--whose very existence on the Ducks’ team is a sore point among some Kings who are only reminded of another gaffe by their management. Ducks’ President Tony Tavares played his little role, as did Melrose. Now a grudge match that hardly existed 1 1/2 years ago is in full flower.

“You’re not a rival until you’re a peer,” Wilson said. “Last year I didn’t expect us to be on a par with the Kings. How can you be a rival if you get pushed around and beaten badly?”

Now the Ducks have a six-game unbeaten streak against the Kings and are 2-0-2 this season. Wilson dismisses the idea that they started 0-4 against the Kings last season because some of the Ducks might have been in awe of the Kings.

“Does that mean they’re in awe this year since they can’t beat us?” he said.

Any discussion of Wilson’s bolder statements should include his insistence one day after April Fool’s Day that the Ducks, in last place and winners of 10 games all season, had a chance to make the playoffs “as crazy as that sounds.”

It didn’t sound so crazy when they were tied for the final Western Conference playoff spot with four games left.

“It starts with him,” left wing Todd Krygier said. “You can tell whether a coach really believes you can win a game or make the playoffs. If he doesn’t believe you’re going to make it, the rest of the guys are not going to believe. They’ll see that the coaches are writing it off. He planted the seeds in our minds that we could make it.”

It doesn’t look as if they will, but “all the stuff I’ve ever read, if you verbalize your goals, you have a much better chance of achieving them,” Wilson said.

“Even if you don’t get what you’re striving for, you get closer to them. By saying we’re going to make the playoffs at the beginning of the season and at the halfway stretch, look how close we are to doing it. If I didn’t say it, maybe we’d be 10 points back.”

Wilson, who was 38 when he was hired, had never been a head coach, except on an interim basis in the minor leagues before being tapped as the Ducks’ first coach. It was a job his two teen-age daughters weren’t crazy about him taking. They figured he’d get fired. NHL coaches don’t last long in general, but the life span of an expansion coach sometimes seems about as long as a fly’s.

Wilson, the son of a coach, has established himself nicely in two seasons. He deserves a good part of the credit for the Ducks’ first season, in which it won a record 33 games for an expansion team, and for shaping a competitive second season despite a bad start as the team, suddenly younger, struggled to find its identity.

A flurry of moves by General Manager Jack Ferreira helped right the team, and for the second time in the franchise’s two years, the Ducks were on the fringes of a playoff race, this time into the final days of the season.

“Going into the first year, you’re not sure if you’re going to live up to your own expectations or other people’s expectations,” Wilson said. “With an expansion team, you don’t know what to expect. What is success? I was fully prepared to win seven or eight games all last year, to be honest with you. I’m not sure that would have been regarded as success.

“I can’t imagine what (Ottawa Coach) Rick Bowness feels like, three years and winning only seven games this year. That would really wear on you.”

Ferreira says this season has been more difficult than the first in some ways, with two training camps, a particularly grueling travel schedule, and, in essence, two teams, the first one and the one that evolved after the new players arrived.

“He’s done a terrific job,” Ferreira said. “I can’t predict the future, but he has all the abilities to be an outstanding coach in this league.

“I think Ron’s real strong suit is he relates well with players and can communicate with them.”

Krygier, who has played for a few coaches, said, “I think he’s one of the better ones--the best I’ve been around--at communicating and teaching. He’s very patient with the players and the preparation has been excellent.”

Goalie Guy Hebert said the players appreciate that Wilson hasn’t made a 180-degree turn from last season.

“He’s (Wilson) stayed on an even keel and been jovial and played Ping-Pong with the guys. He’s stayed as close as he could to the same,” Hebert said. “I’ve seen coaches change day-by-day, never mind season-by-season.”

One difficult thing for Wilson has been dealing with pushing players aside for younger, better ones.

“Coaches have feelings too,” he said. “The hardest part is taking people who contributed and telling them they’re not going to contribute a lot now. You’re forcing them to pass the torch and there’s resentment.

“Like with a Terry Yake or a Tim Sweeney, when roles change. They earned the right to be there but Paul Kariya and Valeri Karpov are young guys who take their place. There’s a natural resentment, and it’s not how much money they make, it’s the fact that they haven’t proven themselves.”

Wilson has proven himself--but just as it is for the players, it’s a job that’s never done.

“You always feel that something’s going to blow up or fall apart,” he said. “You want to keep that edge, that sharpness, because when you relax you lose that edge. I don’t lose sleep at night, but you’re always worried about the decisions you make, whether they’ll make the difference.

“It’s not like we’re over the hump and we’re going to take off and win the Stanley Cup. We still have a lot of building to do.”