Jordan Binnington is quickly becoming one of the best stories from the St. Louis Blues’ 2018-19 season. In his first two NHL starts, Binnington has stopped 53 of the 54 shots has has faced and has propelled the Blues to two big victories.
The takeaway here is obvious: Give Binnington more time.
Some Blues fans have been quick to say there’s a goaltender controversy in St. Louis. That’s kind of silly. For there to be a controversy there needs to be a difficult decision on the table. Here, there’s only one goalie with the hot hand. Why wouldn’t you play the goalie that has shown more recent success? Doesn’t sound very controversial.
As always, it’s important to take things with a grain of salt. Binnington has only made two NHL starts and five total appearances in his career. The Blues have also played strong hockey in front of Binnington in those two starts. That’s something we haven’t seen from the team too often and deserves to be taken into account. How will he look when the Blues resemble the disjointed form we’ve seen all season long?
It’s way too early to name him the new starter for the Blues. And it’s way too early to pretend like we all know what’s in store for the remainder of his 2018-19 season. However, what he has proven is that he deserves more time in the near future and may deserve to be in the conversation in the long-term future.
What about Jake Allen? Simply, Allen hasn’t done enough recently to warrant the starting job at this present time. You could probably make that argument across the entire season as a whole, but it’s not like there was another goalie pushing him for the job. Now that there’s someone looking at least a little competent in goal, Allen needs to make way for the hot hand.
There’s no controversy. Play the hot goalie and hope you win some games.
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