{"id":26536,"date":"2004-06-08T17:23:24","date_gmt":"2004-06-08T22:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2004\/06\/08\/ballard-signs-with-phoenix\/"},"modified":"2010-08-17T19:55:42","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T00:55:42","slug":"ballard-signs-with-phoenix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2004\/06\/08\/ballard-signs-with-phoenix\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballard Signs with Phoenix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Minnesota defenseman Keith Ballard, a 2004 Hobey Baker Award finalist, signed today with the Phoenix Coyotes, foregoing his senior season.<\/p>\n<p> According to his agent, former Minnesota skater Ben Hankinson, Ballard received a $1.2 million signing bonus, and the rookie maximum of $1.185 million per year for three years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Keith Ballard was arguably the best defensemen in NCAA hockey in 2003-04,&#8221; said Phoenix general manager Mike Barnett. &#8220;He was a critical inclusion in our trade with Colorado late last season. &#8230; We look forward to watching Keith develop and contribute to winning in a Coyotes uniform.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As a junior, Ballard missed seven games early in the season with a knee injury, during which Minnesota went 1-5-1. But he came back to spark the two-time defending champions to a run to a WCHA tournament championship. Minnesota was knocked out of the NCAAs in the Midwest Regional final by Minnesota-Duluth. Ballard was a first-team All-American.<\/p>\n<p>Ballard was orignially drafted in the first round, 11th overall, by Buffalo in 2002. His rights were dealt to Colorado, and then to Phoenix on March 9 in the trade that also brought defenseman Derek Morris to Phoenix for center Chris Gratton, defenseman Ossi Vaananen and a second-round draft pick in 2005.<\/p>\n<p>The 5-foot-11 Ballard had 11 goals and 36 points last season in 37 games. He was on the U.S. team that recently won a bronze medal at the World Championships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minnesota defenseman Keith Ballard, a 2004 Hobey Baker Award finalist, signed today with the Phoenix Coyotes, foregoing his senior season. According to his agent, former Minnesota skater Ben Hankinson, Ballard received a $1.2 million signing bonus, and the rookie maximum of $1.185 million per year for three years. &#8220;Keith Ballard was arguably the best defensemen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ballard Signs with Phoenix - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Minnesota defenseman Keith Ballard, a 2004 Hobey Baker Award finalist, signed today with the Phoenix Coyotes, foregoing his senior season. 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