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Ballard swung his stick in frustration after Ilya Kovalchuk scored 8:54 into the first period to give the Thrashers a 2-1 lead. Using a baseball-type swing, he was trying to break his stick over the goal in frustration but instead caught Vokoun in the side of the head.

Neither the Panthers nor the NHL will discipline Ballard for his actions.

"It's a non-factor," DeBoer said. "This guy was visibly shaken and upset by the incident in the game. When we found out that Tomas was going to be fine I think he gutted it out and played the rest of the night for us. Tomas got on the plane and they had a chance to chat and sit together and there were no hard feelings.

"It's unfortunate. We don't condone it. I think organization's biggest issue now is getting the message out to the kids watching the game that it was a heat-of-the-moment play and it's not how you want to handle your frustrations. I'm sure Keith won't do it again and we're moving forward."

Ballard's night got worse as Maxim Afinogenov's game-winning goal deflected off his stick and into the net with only 5.5 seconds left in the contest.

"Obviously Keith has had some tough games the last few and the team has been losing and you see that frustration boil over in all different ways, whether it's guys taking penalties, whether it's yelling on the bench, yelling in the dressing room or whether it's slamming his stick after a goal," DeBoer said. "This one had some consequences."

DeBoer said no one on the Panthers' bench immediately realized what happened after Kovalchuk scored.

"Our trainers had to be called a couple of times because I don't think anybody on the bench realized what happened," DeBoer said. "I don't even think Keith realized he hit him. If you watch the video, he proceeded to hit his stick one more time after he hit Tomas and that tells me he didn't know."

~S~