St. Louis Blues’ Binnington Falls Short For Calder Trophy
By Jason Martin
St. Louis Blues rookie phenom Jordan Binnington fell just short of receiving the Calder Trophy for the league’s top rookie on Wednesday night.
The St. Louis Blues had a handful of players up for nomination for the NHL Awards on Wednesday night, including rookie goalie Jordan Binnington for the Calder Trophy. However, the rookie of the year trophy was handed to Canucks’ forward Elias Pettersson.
Pettersson led all rookies with 28 goals and compiled a rookie-best 66 points in 71 games in 2019. Pettersson had an electric first half of the season, setting the league on fire from his very first shift.
Binnington may have had a more realistic chance of winning the award, had he played the entire season. However, because he made his debut in January, his chances for receiving the award were very slim.
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Binnington did, however, have a ridiculous regular season and played well enough in the postseason to win his team the Stanley Cup but because this is a regular season award, we will focus on that.
The rookie phenom started 30 games down the stretch for the Blues, compiling a 24-5-1 record, a 1.89 GAA and a .927 SV %. These numbers did not just rank at the top of the rookie class, but the entire NHL.
He led the league with a 1.89 GAA and ranked in the top ten in save percentage, including a sixth-place finish in shutouts with five. The play of Binnington cannot go understated in getting his team to the playoffs.
He is an RFA this offseason, and it will be interesting to see what kind of contract Doug Armstrong wants to hand the 25-year-old. I would have a hard time imagining the Blues would want to hand out a deal for anything more than $5 million a year.
The final voting showed that the race between Pettersson and Binnington was not very close. Binnington had 18 first place votes while Pettersson had 151. Pettersson winning the trophy was not that surprising, but the disparity in votes was.
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Whether or not the Blues did as well as they wanted to during the NHL Awards on Wednesday, we can all rest easy knowing that we won the most magnificent trophy in sports.