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Keith Ballard Is Worth $4.2 Million If He Gets Used On The Power Play


Franz Liszt

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Hi.

Its something that is pretty obvious.

- He was played as a top-4 defenseman in Phoenix & Florida, got to penalty kill and play the power play

- He was paired with some good players as well in Michalek, Morris, McCabe & Seidenberg

- He is also pretty darn tough and fought a lot of tough players in his career

- He can rush the puck like no other up the ice and has great vision

There is just one thing missing from his game that we need: POWER PLAY

He now has developed a VERY GOOD defensive game. He just needs to have some offensive time back and then he'll definitely be worth his $4.2 million.

He needs to be used on the 2nd unit. He passes the puck so well on the power play and has a good slap shot and wrist shot to boot.

These videos aren't all power play goals, but they show that he has incredible offensive instincts.

Great rush:

Amazing effort in front of the net:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR7C89Vm34I

BIG slap shot:

And of course, this one:

All in all, I hope we keep Ballard and use him more on the power play.

He would really help either unit!

Sedin Sedin Kesler

Edler/Ballard Garrison

Booth ???? Burrows

Ballard/Hamhuis Bieksa

EDIT: He averaged around 2 goals and 10 assists per 82 games on the power play before he came to Vancouver.

He also averaged over 1 shorthanded goal and 2 shorthanded per 82 games assists before he came here.

Good special teams guy to have (if used properly)!

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It's entirely true.

Ballard didn't suddenly go from being capable of playing 20+ minutes per game with regular PP time, to being unusable in the span of a summer.

A coach needs to give a player the opportunity to do what he has done throughout his career, to be successful. AV gave Ballard 10 minutes of PP time in an entire season... of course Rome got more...

Ballard is perfect for being used on the 3rd pair while getting PP time (and PK as he is a huge shot blocker). If he is actually given the real opportunity, we'll see ballard play the way he did everywhere else, BEFORE getting coached into a mess by AV...

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i've been trying to say for some time Ballard is capable of a lot more if given the chance, like on the PP. But unfortunately, with the coach we have, that wont be happening. Look for Ballard to be shipped out sometime this off-season.

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no....we will never get full value for ballard

some of you might remember when rome got pp time over ballard when rome was playing in his first game coming off a injury...that was the last straw, ever since that game ballard and the canucks relationship was all but over and both of them have been wasting their time ever since

cut your losses mg, send ballard to a team where he can salvage his career...you arent doing him any favors having him playing 12 minutes a night and its not helping the team either....you could get a player at a quarter of his salary to play the exact same minutes and get the same results

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dear keith ballard lovers.....you are insane!

keith ballard has a terrible point shot and can't hit the net. he is incapable of playing the power play.

keith ballard had the worst shooting percentage on the entire canucks roster last season:

2011-2012 - Regular Season - Vancouver Canucks - Skater - Summary - Points Player Team Pos GP G A P +/- PIM PP SH GW OT S S% TOI/G Sft/G FO%

1-29 of 29 results.

1

1 Henrik Sedin VAN C 82 14 67 81 +23 52 8 0 6 0 113 12.4 19:05 24.8 50.1 2 Daniel Sedin VAN L 72 30 37 67 +14 40 10 0 6 2 229 13.1 18:48 25.0 31.6 3 Alexandre Burrows VAN L 80 28 24 52 +24 90 3 2 7 0 198 14.1 18:28 25.8 35.0 4 Ryan Kesler VAN C 77 22 27 49 +11 56 8 1 1 0 222 9.9 20:05 25.8 53.6 5 Alexander Edler VAN D 82 11 38 49 +0 34 5 1 0 0 228 4.8 23:51 28.9 0.0 6 Kevin Bieksa VAN D 78 8 36 44 +12 94 2 0 2 0 166 4.8 23:38 28.2 0.0 7 Chris Higgins VAN L 71 18 25 43 +11 16 1 1 4 2 165 10.9 16:18 23.5 40.0 8 Jannik Hansen VAN R 82 16 23 39 +18 34 0 1 1 0 137 11.7 14:53 22.3 41.4 9 Dan Hamhuis VAN D 82 4 33 37 +29 46 1 0 0 0 140 2.9 23:25 28.8 0.0 10 David Booth FLA, VAN L 62 16 14 30 -5 34 3 0 1 0 159 10.1 14:55 20.7 50.0 11 Sami Salo VAN D 69 9 16 25 +7 10 7 0 3 1 136 6.6 20:26 27.8 0.0 12 Mason Raymond VAN L 55 10 10 20 +4 18 1 1 2 0 125 8.0 15:35 22.2 28.0 13 Maxim Lapierre VAN C 82 9 10 19 -3 130 0 0 0 0 103 8.7 11:13 17.6 52.1 14 Manny Malhotra VAN C 78 7 11 18 -11 14 0 0 2 0 60 11.7 12:20 20.9 58.5 15 Samuel Pahlsson CBJ, VAN C 80 4 13 17 -2 34 0 1 1 0 93 4.3 14:46 21.4 52.6 16 Marc-Andre Gragnani BUF, VAN D 58 2 13 15 +6 26 1 0 0 0 47 4.3 16:08 21.0 100.0 17 Aaron Rome VAN D 43 4 6 10 -4 46 1 0 1 0 42 9.5 15:13 20.3 0.0 18 Zack Kassian BUF, VAN R 44 4 6 10 -2 51 0 0 0 0 54 7.4 11:17 15.0 47.8 19 Dale Weise VAN R 68 4 4 8 -1 81 0 0 0 0 48 8.3 8:09 13.2 0.0 20 Keith Ballard VAN D 47 1 6 7 +0 64 0 0 0 0 41 2.4 15:33 21.4 0.0 21 Andrew Ebbett VAN C 18 5 1 6 +2 6 1 0 2 2 27 18.5 9:35 14.6 53.6 22 Byron Bitz VAN R 10 1 3 4 +2 14 0 0 0 0 6 16.7 10:29 17.4 0.0 23 Andrew Alberts VAN D 44 2 1 3 +4 40 0 0 2 0 19 10.5 14:17 19.7 0.0 24 Christopher Tanev VAN D 25 0 2 2 +10 2 0 0 0 0 15 0.0 16:43 22.4 0.0 25 Mike Duco VAN R 6 0 2 2 +1 5 0 0 0 0 4 0.0 8:03 13.2 0.0 26 Aaron Volpatti VAN L 23 1 0 1 -2 37 0 0 0 0 17 5.9 8:58 13.6 100.0 27 Mark Mancari VAN R 6 0 0 0 +0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0.0 8:18 13.0 0.0 28 Bill Sweatt VAN L 2 0 0 0 +0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0.0 5:20 9.0 0.0 29 Victor Oreskovich VAN R 1 0 0 0 +0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 6:17 9.0 0.0

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Ballard was a top 2 D-man on a bottom of the basement, Southern US team. He's a 3rd pairing D on an elite Canadian team. Ballard fan boys need to just get over it. He hasn't come close to outplaying our other D-men, while being on a bottom pairing against typically the other team's crap players and playing far fewer minutes to get fatigued.

I hope he steps it up this year and has a great season with Tanev, but he's not a top 4 on this team and he's a waste of money for what we get out of him.

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no....we will never get full value for ballard

some of you might remember when rome got pp time over ballard when rome was playing in his first game coming off a injury...that was the last straw, ever since that game ballard and the canucks relationship was all but over and both of them have been wasting their time ever since

cut your losses mg, send ballard to a team where he can salvage his career...you arent doing him any favors having him playing 12 minutes a night and its not helping the team either....you could get a player at a quarter of his salary to play the exact same minutes and get the same results

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Ballard was a top 2 D-man on a bottom of the basement, Southern US team. He's a 3rd pairing D on an elite Canadian team. Ballard fan boys need to just get over it. He hasn't come close to outplaying our other D-men, while being on a bottom pairing against typically the other team's crap players and playing far fewer minutes to get fatigued.

I hope he steps it up this year and has a great season with Tanev, but he's not a top 4 on this team and he's a waste of money for what we get out of him.

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I would agree with you that Ballard would be good on the powerplay but Edler, Garrison, Bieksa and Hamhuis (underrated offensively) are ahead of him on the depth chart in this area.

If the powerplay starts struggling, I would absolutely put him out there though.

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