St. Louis Blues: Jordan Binnington Magic Wearing Off, But No Matter

The St. Louis Blues rise to prominence coincided with Jordan Binnington’s emergence as an NHL player. Though his shine is fading, the Blues have to stick with him.

The St. Louis Blues have had goaltending issues for almost as long as I can remember. Growing up, the first goalie of note for the Note was Curtis Joseph.

Those that saw him, thought he was the one to lift us to where the franchise needed to go. Unfortunately, it was not to be as his greatness had to be shared with other cities.

After that, the Blues had bright spots here and there. Players and fans alike wonder what might have happened with a healthy Grant Fuhr in net in that playoff series against Detroit.

St. Louis had such great promise in 1999-00, only for it to be burned alive by bad playoff goaltending. Since then, it has been a slow, but always turning revolving door of goaltenders.

With that, we latch on to each new face as the promised one – the one that will lead us from this barren, championshipless desert. All of us have fallen prey to it.

We all have our loyalties, whether we were right to have that or not. Even I have had it happen. I was the biggest Jaroslav Halak fan and then came into line with Jake Allen once that had faded.

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I still say that a team can win with Allen, should he be given a chance. Allen is still on par with what Corey Crawford was at the same point in his career, so given the same kind of team, Allen could be successful. Whether that team is the Blues, in the future, is another matter.

Right now, Jordan Binnington is the man and must remain so. Just as the Blues latched their wagon to Brian Elliot in 2015-16, knowing the future plans might be different, they must do the same now.

Binnington has earned that much. While he was not the main reason, you cannot argue that he is one reason the Blues turned their season around.

Binnington was the beneficiary of better defense than Allen got, but he still had to stop the puck. He stopped it well enough to give him the highest, or lowest as the case may be, goals against average. He is second in the league in save percentage as of writing this.

However, some of the luster has worn off with Binnington. He has now allowed seven goals in his last two starts. He has allowed 12 goals in his last five games. The only saving grace for his stats in that period was a shutout of Nashville.

None of this is to say that he is going to fall apart. At this point, Binnington stands just as good a chance of holding his spot as he does not, maybe better.

What this proves, as I have said all season long, is that goaltending was never the main problem. Yes, there were nights where the goalie could or should have done better. However, if the team plays better, then the goalie does not have to be perfect the entire time.

Binnington has not been perfect the last few games, but the team has still won three of those five starts. So, the Blues must stay the course.

When it makes sense, you need to play Allen simply because goaltenders need rest and Binnington has not played 30 or more games in a year for two years. Also, goaltenders do not play the vast majority of games the way they used to. Binnington will need rest.

He is the Blues goaltender right now, though. Barring anything unforeseen, he must remain their goaltender.