Who cares about his Corsi numbers? At $1.5M, I'm sorry, Keith Ballard is a total steal. He's going to hit, he's going to block shots, and he's probably going to be given some room to join rushes, maybe even play on the PP in Minnesota.
Seriously?
"Who cares if he's an atrocious possession player, because when they're constantly pinned in their zone when he's on the ice, he'll BLOCK LOTS OF SHOTS!"
As well, given that every other Canuck defender was allowed join the rush in what's been a very offense-oriented team over the past 3 seasons, the notion that for some reason Ballard wasn't allowed to is ludicrous. And he did rush the puck plenty - it just never led to anything because the rest of his skills are so poor.
And if he plays on the PP, well, that sucks for the Wild.
he still has the tools, hopefully he can regain his confidence in minnesota (which i think he will)...he's easily a bottom pairing d-man on an average nhl team and can move up to play top-4 minutes when injuries dictate
Not picking in you in particular, but this is the sort of thing that drives me nuts. You see it written all the time, but what on earth is it based on?
A guy like Booth who has had struggles over the past couple years, yeah, this is true. You can see the skills, you can see him have great games, you can see him have stretches of games when he's productive. Even though we haven't been getting value, you can still have some degree of optimism that he can come back and score 20-25 goals, because, yes, his skills are still there.
But Ballard? This guy has been *consistently* undersized, ineffective, and chasing the play since he's been here. Looked like nothing other than a marginal NHL defender. Rarely had standout games, never had a productive 5-game or 10-game stretch. Showed few legitimate tools that would make you think he could be productive again.
Exactly what makes him different from Mike Komisarek and Colby Armstrong? Because nobody says 'oh, they've still got the tools' for those guys - it's obvious that they're just guys who burned out early and can't compete at a high level anymore.