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Also, not sure if this article was posted, but KB4 has expressed that he enjoys playing less and winning, than playing in 25+ minutes a game and being on a bottom feeding team. Cut out the start of the article, it's worth a read.
One thing became clear this week, it’s still not enough. Ballard’s margin for error isn’t razor thin. It’s three bad games out of four. The fifteen previous games, all solid, meant nothing, when Vigneault sat Ballard in favour of Andrew Alberts on Saturday, then both Alberts and Cam Barker on Sunday in Calgary.
After saying Ballard would get another chance against San Jose last night, Vigneault said he the defenceman should have seen the benching coming. That’s got to hurt.
“I’ve got to play within those limits, I guess,” Ballard said.
“For where I fit in, bottom line, I don’t have that much room for error, unless I’m doing great things in the other end, in the offensive zone to make up for it.”
How did Ballard handle it?
“I bitch to my wife,” he said. “It was a frustrating couple of days.
“You try not to keep anything at the rink, that’s for sure. Part of being a good teammate is handling that stuff professionally.
“When I go home, and I’m around my family, I’m frustrated for sure. But it’s not something that’s keeping me up at night. It’s not something I’m pacing around all day worired about.”
What Ballard hasn’t done is complained. Yes, his agent called the Canucks brass after the healthy scratches. He’s not the first agent to call a team to figure out what was going on after his client got benched. It wasn’t a call to demand more ice time or a trade. That’s because Ballard has come to terms with his position on the team. He’s seen the other side.
“Sometimes people get it in their head, I have to go somewhere else, I’m being held back,” he said. “How do you know how the next place will be?
“I’ve had that opportunity in the first five years of my career to play 25 minutes, to go over the boards every other shift up by one, down by one, power play, penalty kill. And I finished 26th, 27th, 29th and whatever in the league and it’s not fun.
“It’s fun playing a lot. It’s fun getting those opportunities. It’s fun getting the one time on the 5-on-3. But it sucks losing.
“I like it here for that fact. It’s a good group. It’s fun.”
It wasn’t always fun, especially his first year in Vancouver, when he had to come to terms with a new, diminished role
“I’ve been playing hockey since I was five. That was probably the first bit of adversity I’ve ever had,” he said. “Everything had always gone well. I’ve been kind of the go-to guy on any team I’ve been on. You have bad games, whatever. You go play the next one."
“You don’t worry too much about the mental side, the adversity. Going through it was a battle. But I learned a lot of different ways to see things coming before they kind out of control. Before they spiral and snowball.
“There are different ways I can prepare mentally, as far as focusing on the things I do well, the things that made me successful. All the outside stuff, all the decisions that are out of my control, whether it’s ice time, or situational stuff or it’s why am I not playing, that is out of my control.”
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