4 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
NHL PREVIEW
M 1 • SUnDAy • 09.29.2019
GREAT EXPECTATIONS Binnington’s standout rookie season will be hard to match AN ENCORE PERFORMANCE Last season, Jordan Binnington had the lowest goals-against average for a rookie goalie who played more than 30 games in the expansion era. What did Year 2 look like? Here’s how the goalies with the lowest GAAs since 2000-01 did the following season, and what their GAA were for their careers (some of which are still going). Note that two of the goalies on the list, Brent Johnson and Jake Allen, also played for the Blues: Goalie Year 1 Year 2 Career Jordan Binnington 1.89 TBD TBD Tuukka Rask 1.97 2.67 2.28 Andrew Raycroft 2.05 3.72 2.89 John Gibson 2.07 2.22 2.42 Brent Johnson 2.17 2.18 2.63 Evgeni Nabokov 2.19 2.29 2.44 Henrik Lundqvist 2.24 2.34 2.41 Jimmy Howard 2.26 2.79 2.55 Jake Allen 2.28 2.35 2.54 Steve Mason 2.29 3.05 2.70
BY TOM TIMMERMANN
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
S
ure, Jordan Binnington has people stopping him on freeway offramps for selfies, and he’s getting free meals in restaurants, and he helped the Blues win the Stanley Cup for the first time in forever, so you’d think with all that fame – and with his new contract, fortune – doors would have opened for him when he and some teammates were at the ESPYS in Los Angeles. “You’d think so,” he said, “but we’re at the bottom of the totem pole there with the other sports and athletes and celebrities. We had a tough time getting in the VIP room and we just won an ESPY. … I guess we didn’t have the right pass.” Fame can be fleeting, even if you’ve still got a trophy in your hands, and no one knows that better than a goalie. Like quarterbacks and starting pitchers, goalies are lightning rods, carrying outsided levels of credit and blame. But the reality of the 2018-19 season for the Blues is this: There would be no Stanley Cup, maybe not even a playoff berth for the Blues, if Binnington hadn’t arrived on the scene in January and started winning games left and right. In the regular season, he was 24-5-1 with a leaguebest 1.89 goals-against average and a .927 save percentage and five shutouts. Now, he just has to do it again. That, of course, will be close to impossible. As Blues GM Doug Armstrong observed last season, if Binnington kept playing at the pace he was playing at the start of his career, he would be the greatest goalie in NHL history. No position says ‘what have you done for me lately?’like goalie.As Binnington’s miracle spring rolled on, names would pop up on the list of the last rookie goalie to do something or the other, and some of those names were poster children for goalies who came and went. You don’t even have to go back very far to find one. In 2014-15, Ottawa’s Andrew Hammond was a midseason call-up who went 20-1-2 with a a 1.79 goals-against average and a .941 save percentage. Ottawa went to the playoffs. Hammond has played in seven NHL games in the past three seasons combined, and he spent all of last season with Minnesota’s AHL team in Iowa. This season,he’s in camp with Buffalo,his fourth team in as many seasons. The Blues believe in Binnington for a few reasons, and not just because they gave him a two-year, $8.8 million contract in the offseason. (“It’s good for now,” he said, his sights no doubt set
J.B. FORBES, JFORBES@POST-DISPATCH.COM
on something even bigger.) For one, in addition to 32 regularseason games last season, he played in 26 playoff games. That’s 58 total games, or close to a full season of work for No. 1 goalie, and Binnington was pretty consistent over that time. His numbers at the end may not have been as dazzling as they were early, but Binnington’s stats were so spectacular in that time there was nowhere to go but down. And if his playoff numbers weren’t as good as those of Boston’s Tuukka Rask – 2.46 GAA for Binnington compared to 2.02 for Rask, .914 save percentage for Binnington compared to .934 for Rask – you can’t argue the result, and that when the Blues needed him the most, he got the job done. Many felt Binnington should have won the Conn Smythe Trophy as postseason MVP. (He came in second.) “He did a pretty good job moving forward in the second half of the season,” captain Alex Pietrangelo said. “If you’re worried about him playing under pressure, there’s no reason to worry about that because he did it on the biggest stage. It’s going to be a little different playing more games this year, but he played a lot of hockey in the second half of the year, so there’s no hesitation on our end.” Two, the defense in front of Binnington will help. The Blues’ defense returns pretty much intact from last season: ev-
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eryone but Joel Edmundson is back on defense, and he’ll be replaced by AllStar Justin Faulk. And all but one of the forwards return. The Blues do not figure to be a team that allows a lot of goals in any situation. “I’m not sitting here worried about Binnington,” said Blues coach Craig Berube. “He looks the same to me. The other thing, it’s not just all on Binnington or Jake (Allen). It’s the players in front of him that have to do a good job. We have to play good defense in front of our goalies. That’s what we do.” And lastly, there’s Binnington. The road to the NHL was a long one for Binnington that might never have been paved if Ville Husso, who was supposed to be the next goalie in line for the Blues, didn’t get hurt and have a bad year. “I learned how hard it is to get here, and I know it’s going to be even harder to stay up here,” Binnington said. “It’s a competitive league, the best league in the world, and I enjoy it. I enjoy the travel much better. I’ve seen both sides, and this is the one I definitely want to stay in. Being at the top is pretty special, and I look to continue that success. “There’s always going to be competition anywhere in the league. It’s wherever you look for the competition, whether you’re looking at the best numbers in the league, most wins,
there’s always some motivation you can work toward. I’m a competitive guy and I like to be the best, and that’s kind of my outlook on life. And I think it’s on you to keep working hard and pushing yourself to prepare for whatever comes your way.” That seems to be one of Binnington’s bigger strengths, handling whatever comes his way. Goalies, like baseball relief pitchers, need to have a short memory. When the Blues lost in the playoffs last season, Binnington was 7-2 with a 1.96 goals-against and a .933 save percentage the next time out. “He’s a guy that’s calm, cool,” defenseman Colton Parayko said. “He’s a guy that focuses extremely hard, if you watch him. He’s always focused. He’s always a guy that comes to the rink prepared. Especially for games, you watched it all playoffs long. He just comes, shows up, gives us a chance to win every game and maybe if we end up losing a game, he comes back the next game, he’s not down, he gives us another chance to win. He shows up and gives us an unbelievable game. No matter what, he’s always big back there, he’s always kicking. We’re looking forward to seeing him do his thing again.” So what makes them confident Binnington can do what he did last year again? “Everything,” Parayko said. Tom Timmermann • 314-340-8190 @tomtimm on Twitter ttimmermann@post-dispatch.com