Vintage Binnington pitches first shutout in exactly one year; penalty kill came up big, with key two-man advantage for Canadiens that lasted 1:37; Fowler noticeable offensively, solid read leads to Berggren goal; Thomas shorty was thing of beauty
ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Blues have been searching for a vintage Jordan Binnington performance.
They got one on Saturday.
The goalie has seen his numbers slip, especially of late, with just one win in his past seven starts heading into a matchup with the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday.
But Binnington had arguably his best performance, and first shutout in exactly one calendar year (Jan. 3, 2025) in a 2-0 win over the Canadiens at Enterprise Center.
Jonatan Berggren and Robert Thomas scored the goals that Binnington would need to earn his first shutout since blanking the Ottawa Senators, 4-0 with a 20-save effort then; he made 25 saves on Saturday to help the Blues once again get back to within a game of .500 at 17-18-8 and pending other results on Saturday, one point out of a Western Conference wild card.
Let’s dive into those Saturday game observations:
* Jordan Binnington was … Jordan Binnington – Coming off a discouraging 6-1 loss against the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday in which Binnington was bombarded with 43 shots and giving up four or more goals for the ninth time this season and Joel Hofer pillaging a good number of starts here lately, Binnington typically performs at his best when the guy behind him is testing him.
And such was the case on this day.
It was a performance of a guy that was selected by Team Canada for a reason, and it all boils down to whether those skaters in front of him perform at a high level.
The Blues were much better in front of their goalie than they have been, and he rewarded them by looking sharp, quick, reading plays, making the right handoffs for puck transition and not succumbing to the times when the Canadiens (22-13-6) were able to get interior position and causing chaos in front of him.
“Yeah definitely that feels better for sure,” Binnington said. “We played hard, good win at home, some good special teams, a good shorthanded goal. Some guys had some big games. It’s obviously a better outcome.
“We really played a good defensive game and did our best to get rid of second chances. Penalty kill was very strong.”
Don’t get me wrong, Binnington still had to make a number of key saves. According to moneypuck.com, his goals saved above expected was 3.31, which is one of his high marks for the season.
It started with a flurry of activity at the end of the first period and the Blues holding a 1-0 lead when Brendan Gallagher got off four – yes, four – shots on goal in a span of nine seconds late in the first to preserve the lead.
It continued into the second, and one of his best was an outstretched save on Ivan Demidov at 13:40 from the bottom of the right circle, a one-timer, that was pegged for the net but Binnington got a pad on it:
“Maybe off the pad. Just desperation,” Binnington said. ‘They’ve got some high-end talent on that team. You’re just trying to see if the guy’s a lefty or a righty. Fun game.”
And there were six saves during a penalty kill that we’ll get into below, a save on former Blue Zack Bolduc with four seconds left coming in alone off the left hand side.
“End of the period, sometimes the last minute guys think the clock’s going to run out and it happens both ways,” Binnington said. ‘They got a chance. Obviously it was a 2-0 game at the time, so you want to make that save and close out the period. He just got a partial breakaway and I stayed with him.”
There was a wraparound by Cole Caufield with 5:09 to play that took every bit of his right skate to seal off the left post, and when he gets the right pad up on Nick Suzuki’s rebound attempt with 49 seconds to play, you knew it was his day.
“He was great,” Blues defenseman Cam Fowler said of Binnington. “Gave us a chance to win that hockey game, made some huge saves for us in some crucial times and was a big reason why we were able to get the two points tonight. Him and ‘Hofe,’ they always battle for us and give us a chance to win. 'Binner' was outstanding.”
Thomas added, “I think back to back, it’s a tough game. They’re waiting for us. I think ‘Binner’ came out and played outstanding. Made some huge saves at big moments and kept us in the game and got us the win.
“Pretty much most of the time he’s locked in. A lot of times, we don’t give him too much help in front, but tonight, he made a lot of saves on ones he probably shouldn’t have. That’s what got us the win.”
If anyone was worried about Binnington’s so-called regression, it wasn’t Blues coach Jim Montgomery.
“I think it’s really important, not so much for ‘Binner,’ because ‘Binner’s self-belief is unbelievable,” Montgomery said. ‘But I think it’s really important for people in the NHL to see how good he is and nothing has changed. It’s been us in front of him and not him that has allowed for the numbers that go under him, but for me, his goaltending has really been solid all year. Every year there’s a couple games you want to have back, but if I have to worry about Binnington, I don’t have anything to worry about.”
* Huge 5-on-3 PK – The Blues were 4-for-4 on the penalty kill, but none was more massive than a two-man advantage the Canadiens had with Brayden Schenn already in the box for tripping at 13:20 of the second, and Colton Parayko going off for high sticking at 13:43, mere seconds after Binnington robbed Demidov.
Montreal did have Suzuki, Caufield, Demidov, Juraj Slafkovsky and Noah Dobson as their five-man unit for the majority of it, and the Canadiens were able to get off six shots on Binnington, but the Blues did their best with Thomas, Philip Broberg and Justin Faulk to start it, then Fowler, Pavel Buchnevich and Alexey Toropchenko to follow as their three-man units of keeping things away from between the dots.
The Canadiens were held goalless and the game remained 2-0.
“I thought our sticks were excellent,” Montgomery said. ‘I thought we protected against seams. I only remember one seam, and it was a really good one-touch by Demidov. And that’s going to happen; it’s a 5-on-3. But they didn’t one-time off of it so we could get back into our triangle.
“We gave them the outside and then the best defensive stick was ‘Binner’s on that cross-crease pass that he deflected over the glass. It’s just a high-end brain by him.”
Binnington attributed it to doing their homework and he being the best penalty killer of all in that situation.
“Good pre-scout,” he said. “We knew some of their tendencies. You’ve got to just have fun with it and battle. That’s what we did. … They know where each other are on the ice and they like to slide pucks backdoor and through the crease and stuff like that. Obviously have some good one-timers on both sides.
“When it’s 5-on-3, they have two open guys and that’s part of it. I’m really happy we competed hard and we got some momentum from it actually, and we got a shorthanded goal, which was huge.”
Thomas said, “Try to keep them from making cross-crease passes and keep it on one side and trust ‘Binner’ to make big saves. There’s a couple one-timers he made big saves on. That’s kind of what we tried to do.”
“You’ve got to be aware of what they’re trying to do,” Fowler said. “Obviously they have some elite shooters, Caufield and Dobson, so we’re trying to make sure that we take away the one-timers and that we’re in shot lanes. You just have to have an understanding of what they’re trying to run. Our guys for almost two minutes, they really dug in and then you need your goaltender to make some huge saves, which he did.”
* Solid execution leads to Berggren goal – The Blues had been doing well with entries into the offensive zone early, and whether it may or may not have contributed to Montreal fudging up their zone exit when Jayden Struble didn’t cleanly handle Arber Xhekaj’s cross ice pass, but Otto Stenberg was all over it and collected the loose puck along the right wall, he alertly found Fowler coming into the high slot, and Fowler did enough to freeze Canadiens goalie Jacob Fowler before dishing to Berggren for a one-timer from the right circle and a 1-0 lead at 10:48 of the opening period:
“Otto, he kind of made a play on the wall there and I saw some open ice where I could maybe jump in,” Cam Fowler said. “By the time I got it, I was in a pretty good scoring area, but I saw ‘Bergy’ there. If I could just put him in a good position where I could maybe make the goalie pause a little bit and slide it over to him and he made a great shot. I think it was just a good, overall play by everybody.”
* Thomas shorthanded beauty gave Blues a cushion – The Blues headed to their penalty kill for the first time in a 1-0 game when Buchnevich – who should have drew two penalties in this game that weren’t called – was sent to the box for tripping at 9:02 of the second period.
But what Thomas did leading up to his goal was a thing of beauty when he picked off budding star Lane Hutson in the neutral zone, dangled the puck through Demidov into the offensive zone, then slid a pass through Hutson’s skates to Toropchenko, who powered his way off the right to the net before the puck slid off his stick, Thomas alertly was there to slide in the backhand at the short side at 10:13 for a 2-0 lead:
“I saw the guy try and jump me there,” Thomas said. ‘I was able to just get around him and ‘Torp’ made a good play and just kind of bounced to me, that’s about it.”
Thomas followed up a performance Friday in a 4-3 win over the Vegas Golden Knights playing 20:05 by playing 22:33 in this game, including 3:41 killing penalties.
“I thought that was, if not, (one of) Robert Thomas’s best games of the year,” Montgomery said. “Just the way he dug in. Last night he played 20 minutes, tonight he played 22 minutes. He killed the 3-on-5, he gets a shorthanded goal on a great play with ‘Torpo.’ And he’s going against their top line all night long in Suzuki and we ended up on top of that.”
* Blues sticks were good throughout – The Canadiens boast plenty of young talent, talent that likes to move through all three zones. Essential sticks and killing plays were going to be crucial in this game, and the Blues neutralized, I thought, what Montreal was trying to do in the neutral zone more so than anything.
“I thought in the neutral zone we were really good with it,” Montgomery said. ‘I thought our angling was. We were over top of it with speed, which allowed us to break out quite quickly, especially in the first. We had a lot of odd-man rushes. If we continue to get those odd-man rushes, hopefully we’re going to start burying those opportunities.”
And when the Canadiens were able to get ample amount of zone time, there was a concerted effort by both Binnington and those in front of him to battle for one another.
“How well ‘Binner’ battled for us and how well we battled for him in the crease,” Montgomery said of what stood out. “I thought that our urgency at clearing the crease, there was a lot of scrambles, but we managed the chaos really well, and I thought our puck support tonight was really good. Coming out of our D-zone, on entries into the offensive zone and I think it allowed us to have a lot of opportunities, especially in the first two periods.”
The Blues came out of the weekend with four of four points, which is what was needed after a couple of bad performances.
“It was close,” Fowler said. “I think there’s still some things that we can do a little bit better. Our penalty kill did a great job and situationally, we hung in there and made the plays that we needed to, but I still think there’s another level that we can get to. But it’s encouraging to be able to get four points in back to back games, especially when you feel you’re not at your ‘A’ game. That gives us a lot of momentum moving forward and we’ll continue to chip away.”
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