So far, it’s looking like I was wrong in September when I made a “bold prediction” that Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington would improve his save percentage from .894 last season to .915 this season.
Heading into Thursday’s late game against San Jose, Binnington was toting an even glossier .930.
Yes, that was through only 10 games for him, so there’s plenty of time for my prediction to come untrue. But not only has this been quite a bounce-back season for Binnington, but his advanced metrics have him ranked among the top goalies in the NHL.
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Before stepping in for Joel Hofer in the second period of a lackluster 5-1 loss to the Sharks, Binnington was No. 4 in the league in GSAx, which shows the difference between a goalie’s expected goals against (or workload) and actual goals allowed. His number was an impressive 9.2 this season, meaning he had saved more than nine would-be goals against.
According to Evolving Hockey, Binnington’s save percentage in all situations against unblocked shots was .952 heading into the game. His expected goals against was 32, and he had allowed just 23, thus a 9.2 GSAx.
If you boil it down to a per-60-minutes basis to account for actual minutes played, Binnington heading into Thursday was seeing about one shot per game more this season (32.5 to 31.4) and his goals against had dropped more than a goal (2.27 from 3.32).
Part of the reason is the Blues’ change to a zone defensive system.
Binnington is stopping the shots that he’s seeing, and his teammates are helping clear away the rebounds. Last season, they allowed 47 rebound goals, which was the second-worst total behind Columbus. This season, through Wednesday, they had allowed just two, which was tied for tops in the league with the New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings.
There’s less pandemonium around the Blues’ net, which is supported, too, by the fewer number of times Binnington has frozen the puck this season. Last season, he had 355 puck freezes (6.1 per 60 minutes); heading into Thursday, he had done so just 24 times (2.4/60) in 2023-24.
But here’s where Binnington’s performance this season gets interesting. Albeit with a small sample size, some of his numbers are the best of his career. His 9.2 GSAx through Wednesday, for example, was better than his 8.9 GSAx in 2018-19, when he led the Blues to the Stanley Cup. Granted, his expected goals against was one goal less (2.2 compared to 3.2) in 2018-19, but he was still pacing ahead of that season when accounting for his ice time.
To get a closer look at what Binnington is doing so well, The Athletic roped in former professional goalie Mike McKenna, who played 35 games in the NHL and more than 500 more in the AHL and ECHL.
McKenna watched nine video clips from the Blues’ 5-0 win over Tampa Bay and 8-2 win over Colorado. While some of the saves look routine to the untrained eye, there’s actually a lot of preparation and reaction that goes into them, as we learn.
Tampa Bay
Situation: First period, 0-0
McKenna: There’s a lot of saves in this sequence. The first save comes on Tampa Bay’s Luke Glendening. Binnington is square early, and the shot ends up getting blocked by Blues defenseman Marco Scandella, but it goes right in front to the Lightning’s Nick Perbix. Perbix is coming right down the right wing, and he ends up taking a slap shot at the dot. Because Binnington knows he doesn’t have time to get to his feet, he’s trying to get his entire body in front of the shot. He elects to do that with something we call “power pushing,” and he has to take two pushes to go from his right to the left. He ends up making the save on Perbix’s shot, and it’s a great save because he had to move quickly.
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But he doesn’t hit his post, and because of that, he ends up well outside the paint, so he’s got to travel back to the crease. He would’ve liked to stop his momentum at the post, but he gets right back to the middle of the ice in a hurry. From there, what he does really well is he gets his eyes on this puck. It’s in the dog pile in the low slot, it kicks over, and Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos is right there. Originally, Binnington is reaching with his blocker for a low shot from Stamkos, but what ends up happening is, the shot goes in the air and Binnington is able to react upward with his shoulders to make the save. This is a great instance of an NHL goaltender battling for his position, battling to make saves, and ultimately getting it done.
Situation: Second period, Blues leading 1-0
McKenna: This one is pretty simple. The puck goes low to high, and Tampa Bay’s Mikhail Sergachev has it at the point. The Blues players are in their zone defense, they’ve largely been able to box out the Lightning, and Binnington has a clear line of sight for this shot. But you’ll notice he’s a little bit more aggressive in his positioning. He has his heels at the top of the crease for this point shot, and the reason being, I believe, is that he knows Tampa Bay has a player who’s coming to the front of the net. So as the play goes to the point, Binnington knows that there are bodies right in front of him that may eventually get tangled, so he needs to be a little bit more aggressive with his positioning just in case of a potential tip or something. But he’s able to track it the whole way and make the glove save.
Situation: Second period, Blues leading 1-0
McKenna: The puck goes down to the half wall and it’s kicked out to the point. Binnington goes into his high stance, and he tends to use this when the puck is anywhere beyond the top of the circle or so, when it’s moving around the outside of the defensive zone. He will almost stand upright, but he’ll still keep his arms out to the sides, and what he’s doing by that is presenting “big.” He’s filling space, and he’s not giving the shooter anything to look at, but he’s able to look up, over and around traffic in front. That’s what he does on this shot. He’s looking around the screen, so he can get his eyes on it, and once it eventually comes, he knows he’s got to shift over to his right just a little bit. He makes the save from there, and he’s able to cover it.
Situation: Third period, Blues leading 3-0
McKenna: This is a combination save by Binnington. The initial shot is by Tampa Bay’s Tyler Motte, coming down the left side on Binnington’s blocker side. This one is a little bit tough because Motte goes forehand to backhand, and in doing so, he changes the angle very quickly. That makes Binnington go into what used to be a really common technique called the “VH,” or vertical-horizontal, position. It’s a pretty high place to do a VH. He’s expecting a short-side shot from Motte on the backhand, but instead, Motte ends up going low blocker side. Binnington is actually a little lucky here that the shot hits his pad, but in any case he makes the save, and the rebound kicks directly to the middle. It’s one of the reasons why the VH is rarely used on these shots, because it can be unpredictable with the puck and you end up outside your crease, as Binnington does.
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But what Binnington does really well is, he gets his eyes on it early, rotates and goes right to the middle of the paint. He doesn’t chase forward toward Tampa Bay’s Tanner Jeannot. He rotates and goes toward that far post. So once again, he’s trying to get his body to fill the maximum amount of space in the middle of the net and get as square to that shot as possible. Jeannot just blindly puts it into the middle of the net, like players are trained to do. They don’t try to put it in corners when they see a whole of net. They try to put it right in the middle of the net, and Binnington is doing an outstanding job of protecting the middle. That sounds crazy because, of course, that’s your job to protect the middle. But you have to do it with a purpose, and you have to arrive early, and Binnington has done that.
Colorado
Situation: First period, Blues leading 1-0
McKenna: When the puck goes to the point, Binnington adopts a high stance so that he can see around the screen in front. Colorado’s Miles Wood sifts this puck through traffic onto Binnington, but because Binnington is high in his goalie stance, he can see the puck. The problem is that he has to shift to his right, which isn’t a comfortable feeling for a goaltender. The puck goes towards his right, it hits the bodies in front, and now Binnington has to go right to left. When Logan O’Connor picks up the puck, Binnington is angling back toward his post, so as he butterflies for the original shot by Woods, he rotates slightly to his left and goes towards his post, which allows him to make the save on O’Connor.
He has to break technique a little bit. He’s reaching, and he’s a little spread, but because the play happens so quickly laterally, he had to keep up with it in that manner. So the key to this save is No. 1, Binnington got eyes on the initial shot. No. 2, once Binnington was done, he was able to rotate slightly and go toward his post rather than straight across the ice laterally. And No. 3, he was able to seal the ice effectively for O’Connor’s shot.
Situation: First period, Blues leading 1-0
McKenna: On this play, the play travels around the perimeter of the offensive zone for Colorado, and what Binnington does really well is that he doesn’t leave his crease. He stays right at the top of it, and he doesn’t overplay the shot. So when the puck goes over to Colorado’s Josh Manson, and he’s coming down the wing on Binnington’s left side, Ryan Johansen of the Avalanche is right in front of the net. Johansen is trying to provide a moving screen for Manson. Their timing is a little bit off, so Binnington sees this shot the entire way.
You can see that he drops to his right to take this puck right in the chest. It looks like a simple save, and it is because Johansen moved out of the way faster than he needed to, but the key to this is that Binnington is still in the blue paint. He’s not overcommitting by being into the white ice, so any rebound opportunity he would still have a great chance of making a secondary save.
Situation: Second period, Blues leading 3-0
McKenna: This is a pretty interesting sequence by today’s standards because when Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen is coming toward the net on Binnington’s left, Binnington knows that Rantanen loves to pick the short side, high, right underneath the bar. So Binnington uses the VH again. His left pad is vertical against the post and his glove is up in the air, so he’s taking away all of the short side. If Rantanen has his head up, though, he sees the far side would be open. This is a bit of a gamble on Binnington’s part.
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When Rantanen cuts to the middle of the ice, Binnington has to transition into paddle down and move across because it looks like Rantanen may wrap. Now what Binnington does incredibly well is recover to his edges when Rantanen ends up moving the puck to Nathan MacKinnon in the slot. The little movement that Binnington has to the middle of the crease is what makes this save. He doesn’t run forward to MacKinnon. He doesn’t charge the shooter. He just stays in the middle of the net, and what that does is allows him to be square, but also be able to react to the shot. That keeps any secondary opportunity from happening because Binnington is largely set and ready for MacKinnon. Even though he’s a little bit deep, and he’s giving up some net, he’s ready to react and make that save.
Situation: Second period, Blues leading 3-0
McKenna: This save looks really simple for Binnington, and it is because his positioning is outstanding. The Avalanche are on the power play, and it’s a faceoff win directly to the Avs’ Mikko Rantanen. He sees Rantanen is wide open, but what Binnington also sees is that every other player on the ice is still on the right side of the ice. Binnington knows that Rantanen is going to shoot this puck. Rantanen is already winding up for it, the Blues’ defensemen are flexing out, and in this instance, Binnington knows that he can be a little bit more aggressive and take some ice forward. He doesn’t charge at Rantanen, but he moves forward about a foot and manages to get his feet set before the shot comes. That is critical to making the save and controlling the rebound. So again, Binnington is able to get set, control the puck, and make it look easy.
Situation: Second period, Blues leading 3-0
McKenna: This might have been Binnington’s best save in the Colorado game. Once again, it’s on the penalty kill, and once again, Mikko Rantanen is involved. This time he’s driving toward the slot area, and Binnington is ready, sitting in the blue paint, so he’s not committing to the shot on the front side. He’s ready to move on anything, and sure enough, Rantanen goes across laterally from Binnington’s right to left and puts a pass right onto the tape of Cale Makar, who’s driving in from the blue line.
What Binnington does incredibly well on this save is, he gets his eyes on the puck and his shoulders square immediately. He rotates back and to his left and is able to get his entire body square to the shot before Makar releases it. Binnington is a little late just because it’s such a fast play, but he knows that Makar is going to have short-side to shoot at, so Binnington is trying to cover high short-side. He’s got his glove a little bit higher. He’s left knee is up in the air. He’s taking away that vertical space on Makar for the shot. Ultimately, it’s Binnington’s rotation, his powerful push, and really his early eyes that, once again, gets his chest in front of this shot from Makar.
(Photo of Jordan Binnington: Christopher Morris / NHLI via Getty Images)