32 Teams In 32 Days: St. Louis Blues

What if they invested in the wrong goalie? Jordan Binnington will make or break everything.

• In Today’s 32 Team Outlook we examine the St. Louis Blues and starting goalie Jordan Binnington.

• Be sure to check out yesterday’s look at the Montreal Canadiens and the impact of head coach Martin St. Louis.

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It was four years ago that Jordan Binnington came out of nowhere to help salvage the St. Louis Blues season.

Midway through the 2018-19 season they were an outstanding defensive team, had plenty of playmakers, and were as dominant as any team in the league in terms of controlling possession and dictating the pace of games. They had every ingredient you would want to see in a contending team except for one major one: Goaltending.

The duo of Jake Allen and Chad Johnson was simply not getting the job done and in danger of limiting what a bonafide contender could do.

Then Binnington entered the picture.

He ended up finishing the regular season on a white-hot run, pushed the Blues into a comfortable playoff position, and then maintained that level of play throughout the playoffs to help the franchise win its first ever Stanley Cup. He finished second in the Calder Trophy (rookie of the year) voting, 10th in MVP voting, and fifth in Vezina Trophy voting.

It was an outstanding performance, and it cemented him as the Blues’ franchise goalie moving forward.

In the three years since he has struggled to match that consistency, and it has left the Blues with a pretty important question going into the 2022-23 season: Did they invest in and keep the right goalie?