ST. PAUL, Minn. — It's a long six-hour drive to the family-owned resort in northern Minnesota where Keith Ballard knows the ice fishing is excellent. It's a short six-minute walk from the team hotel to the Xcel Energy Center where the Vancouver Canucks defenceman knows he doesn't have to fish for compliments.

In what ranks as one of the good-news stories, the steady and dependable play of Ballard in a pairing with Chris Tanev includes several chapters of drama and determination that encompass the last two years. They speak of Ballard's physical and mental challenges to recover from injuries, gain the coach's trust and be worthy of a $4.2 million US annual contract that has two years remaining after this season and is talk-show fodder for a compliance buyout.

Yet, as the Canucks were forced to juggle their parings in the early going, Ballard and Tanev remained intact. Ballard is looking and sounding like someone who's finally found a comfort zone. After arriving in Vancouver for the 2010-11 season with a sore hip from surgery and then enduring a concussion and knee injury, he's finally in a good place.

"I've known Keith since he played in Phoenix and his heart has always been in the right place and he just wants to do well," said Canucks associate coach Rick Bowness, who handles the blueliners. "When he came to Vancouver, he tried to do too much and that's a by-product of playing for two non-playoff teams (Coyotes, Panthers). We just wanted him to calm down and not chase the game all the time and be patient.

"He's letting the game come to him and he's not running around. His positional play is much better and so you feel good about your contributions."

Part of the improvement is Ballard overcoming a concussion that cost the 30-year-old Baudette, Minn. native 29 games late last season before he excelled in the postseason.

Part of it is the instant chemistry he's developed with Tanev and part of it is a tough lockout training regiment at the University of Minnesota that gave the Golden Gophers alum a conditioning leg up on his peers. He logged 18:33 Thursday during a 4-1 win over the Minnesota Wild in which he went flat out to sweep a puck away from Dany Heatley in the slot an also took out Torrey Mitchell with a heavy check.

However, most of the reason for improvement comes from his wife, family, faith and a friend who's also a sports psychologist.

"It was a battle the one year and you try and be as upbeat as you can for the sake of the team and I'd get home and with my wife (Jamie), we had a lot of talks and she helped me through a lot of things," said Ballard. "My faith in God was huge and I've been fortunate to be surrounded by great people. There are certain things in life that everybody has when they have some adversity — to have something to fall back on.

"I have a family of my own family now and to come home and see a little girl (Ava) laughing and wanting to play and not really worried about anything else — that's extremely important. And after the first year, I did a lot of work with a friend who's a sports psychologist who I had known for a long time. We had talked in bits and pieces here and there but I wanted to make it part of my training. There's a misconception that if you do something like that you're weak or weird. I looked at it as another training tool, whether things are going poorly or well because it's balancing the good and the bad.

"It has really helped with having a consistent focus and mindset. Learning a better way to look at the game shift to shift. Some people have a one great play and assume they play great or a bad play and assume they play bad. I've got small keys I focus on and the rest is kind of B.S. that you block out."

The biggest offseason concern was lingering effects from the concussion he suffered a year ago. In a Feb. 4 game against Colorado, his face hit the end boards on a check from Daniel Winnik before he was crosschecked in the back on the next shift. Those concerns were eased during the lockout in 45-minute skates followed by 45-minute scrimmages at the University of Minnesota.

Three to four times a week as many as 30 players — including former Golden Gophers Erik Johnson and Kyle Okposo and current Wild players Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu, Niklas Backstrom and Cal Clutterbuck — plus a host of other NHL players who reside in Minnesota during the offseason would skate and scrimmage hard.

"We all kind of pushed each other," recalled Ballard. "The hard part was there was no (lockout) end date in sight, so you never knew when to push it or back off a bit. We'd play for the ice or something and make it competitive."

And because Tanev also played 29 games with the Chicago Wolves during the lockout, there wasn't a feeling-out process or conditioning gap for the pair when the shortened NHL season started.

"There was a bit of an adjustment to get up to game speed, but we had the fall back of familiarity and that made that aspect as easy as it could be," said Ballard. "Sometimes you just have to keep it simple and just play within yourself and not get too crazy out there."

bkuzma@theprovince.com

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