The St. Louis Blues have relied less on their starting goaltender’s skills of late, but he has not faltered. In fact, he was named a star of the week for the NHL.
The St. Louis Blues were relying heavily on Jordan Binnington to keep them in games and steal wins early in the 2019-20 season. As the calendar begins to turn to a new year and new decade, the Blues have relied on him less, but he has not played at any lower level.
One night after earning the second star of the game in a 4-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets in the final home game of 2019, Binnington earned a league wide honor. Coincidentally, he was named the second star of the entire week, ending December 29, in the NHL.
During that span of time, Binnington won a league-best three games and was undefeated at 3-0. He had 79 saves in two games against the Jets and one against the Los Angeles Kings.
In those three games he had a save percentage of .929. His goals against was even better at 1.96.
The weekly honor somewhat caps off what has been a spectacular first calendar year for Binnington. While he was the goaltender of note for the Blues in 2018-19, he did not play a game until 2019, with his first start coming back on January 7 and starting off with a shutout.
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Binnington set a team record with 59 wins in 2019. Binner fell short of the all-time record by only three games, set by Marc-Andre Fleury who had 62 wins in calendar 2009. Still, being tied with all-time great Bernie Parent is not bad company.
This past week, Binnington proved that he was still the quality fans assumed he was. Given Jake Allen‘s recent stellar play, coupled with a couple questionable starts by Binnington, fans were fearing a reversion to the years where you had a goaltender controversy.
Binnington calmed those fears with two 4-1 wins, one of which could have been a shutout, and a 5-4 win. Of course, as a goaltender, the four goals given up in Winnipeg won’t sit well, but there was not much Binnington could do about any of those.
If you ask the sarcastic netminder, he would likely have a smart aleck remark about this honor. Nevertheless, it is always nice for Blues players to be recognized by the league office.
Even after winning a Stanley Cup, St. Louis is somewhat forgotten. The Blues are not the sexiest of teams, loaded with skill and lighting the lamp in astounding numbers.
Likewise, Binnington is not an undeniable force with personality to boot, ala Martin Broduer or Patrick Roy. He gets the job done, though, and that is all the Blues need. Leave the flair to someone else as long as the results are there.
Weekly honors are not anything needed. It’s just a nice little cherry on top of a fine week.