The Brown Knight wrote:RoyalDude wrote:The Brown Knight wrote:
Why was Hamhuis able to adjust so well to our system while Ballard did not? Is that Mike Gillis' fault?
Um well, cause Ballard has always been known as an unpredictable dumb ass on the ice playing his own game instead of the team game and Hamhius, pretty much the opposite has been known as a sound, stable d-man with great hockey sense. Does that help? I know you might like to think so, along with the rest of the Weird Gillis Love here, but I did not make that up Great Brown Knight of Gotham.
Agree with you that Ballard hasn't always been the greatest in his own end, but look at these stats:
Look at how he performed in Florida..........and then how he performed here from a point production standpoint:
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdis ... ?pid=61770.
So again - based on those stats from Florida, how was Gillis supposed to know that Ballard would be a flop here?
Again - was Ballard's sharp decline an indication of Gillis' bad judgement, or is this a reflection on Vigneault or even Ballard himself?
Ballard was the result of Vigneault's inept ability to deal and utilize players that he just didn't like. He needs "the right players". Ballard showed up and needed surgery and rehab, he returned, played a couple of games and got hurt again. When he came back he made a few mistakes and that was all she wrote for Keith. Vigneault was done with him. It didn't matter that we had Edler, Bieksa, Alberts, and Rome, all making the same mistakes every game, Ballard was the guy that Vigneault held accountable.....
The Rangers are spinning their wheels and are a completely shit team right now. They weren't much better under Torts, but they sure
looked like they wanted it more.
Where Gillis dropped the ball in regards to Ballard was not in trading for him, it was in not trading him back out after it was clear Vigneault preferred AHL call-ups to Ballard.
As for Ballard himself, as far as we can tell from the outside looking in, he was a team guy, never complained publicly, just stuck it out, showed up for work every day, and just never got a chance. Not too many players are going to thrive in a situation like the one he was in. However, there were a few on-ice incidents where I noticed that he might not have been gelling with the guys. Most notably was the way Luongo treated him after he screwed up at center ice and the odd man rush put the puck in our net. Keith went over to Lou to apologize (presumably), and Lou just skated right past him and didn't even acknowledge him, Ballard then slammed his stick on the ice in frustration. Had that been any other guy, I think Louie gives him a stick tap and turns the page. On top of that, Luongo should easily have made that save as the shot came in from above the faceoff circle and the lone defender was doing a very good job of making sure the pass wasn't getting through while Ballard was closing the gap from behind and actually forced the guy to rush the shot.
So really the whole situation is a collage of errors made by three people, and as much as RD likes to pin this one all on GMMG, really Gillis only erred by inaction towards the end.