Well, we had a feeling that it was going to have to be a Jordan Binnington-type night if the St. Louis Blues were going to knock off the defending Stanley Cup champions; the goalie was THN's player to watch.
And true to form, Binnington was terrific in backstopping the Blues to a 2-1 overtime win against the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday at T-Mobile Arena.
To say that a number of the Golden Knights will go to sleep tonight frustrated is understating it, since Binnington kept a number of them, including former teammate Ivan Barbashev, from padding their offensive numbers in this game.
Binnington was terrific, especially his rebound control, and was only beaten by a terrific shot on the power play by Jack Eichel in the third period, but aside from that, he sparkled to helping the Blues (13-10-1) pick up two huge points after Pavel Buchnevich ended the game 38 seconds into overtime.
According to natstattrick.com, Binnington faced 20 high-danger corsi-for chances against and stopped all but one of them, and according to moneypuck.com, Binnington stopped 4.18 goals above expected, which is incredible for one game. He came into the game 16th in the league at 5.5 goals saved above expected and jumped all the way up to sixth at 9.7.
And not only did Binnington stop two breakaways in the game, he used his twig to poke-check two of those high danger scoring chances, including one off Eichel in the second period.
Chalk that one up as one of the better games played by Binnington in a Blues jersey, but nothing will top June 12, 2019 with what was on the line against the Boston Bruins. This was right up there, though.
