St. Louis Blues: Analyzing Jordan Binnington’s new contract

St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington signed a two-year pact to stay in St. Louis. Why not longer? Why did Doug Armstrong settle for a bridge deal?

After the 2019 season with the franchises’ first Stanley Cup, after the celebrations died down the St. Louis Blues knew they had a lot of work to do. With the end of their Cinderella season came a plethora of expiring contracts to deal with.

General Manager Doug Armstrong said he wanted everyone back, to get the band back together. Well, this past weekend the Blues were able to lock up their most high-profile restricted free agent – Stanley Cup hero goaltender Jordan Binnington.

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Binnington was a cornerstone of the Blues team that accomplished the unthinkable, going worst to first en route to a Stanley Cup championship. He also emerged as the first St. Louis goaltender to provide stability increase in recent memory, following a cast of characters that saw Jaroslav Halak, Jake Allen, and even Ryan Miller briefly suit up in the Blue note uniform. The new deal is a two-year contract that will pay Binnington $4.4 million per season.

Although arbitration was avoided, the contract is still a short-term bridge deal. It only secured Binnington’s services before he earns the title of an unrestricted free agent.

Considering the impact that Binnington had on this team, and the fact the Blues seem to have finally found their answer in goal, the contract term raised a few eyebrows.

Bridge deals are quite common in the NHL, as players wait to cash in for the big bucks free agency brings. However, you would think Armstrong would do everything to keep Binnington for as long as he can while Binnington is still an RFA under team control.

At the present moment, fans shouldn’t worry or doubt his loyalty to the Blues. Just because the contract length isn’t as long as some would like doesn’t mean that Binnington will bolt from the Blues in two years leaving them with nothing, although that remains an unfortunate possibility. Remember, without the 2018-2019 St. Louis Blues team, Binnington was just another minor league goaltender buried in the AHL. Those type of players come at a dime a dozen.

Perhaps the short contract term is a good move by the Blues. Although Binnington had an amazing 2018-2019 season, he’ still a player whose only played 59 career NHL games. To be the Blues true number one, one would have to expect that’d be his workload, or more, for a single season, playoffs not included.

If he can repeat his performance from last season he’s in for an even more considerable raise than the one he’s just been given (his average annual value is increasing from $650,000 he received last season). If Binnington proves to be a one hit wonder, like Andrew Hammond was for the Ottawa Senators, Armstrong is free from any long-term obligation.

Luckily for Binnington, St. Louis has a pretty good defense in front of him. Even when the number of games he starts inevitably increases tenfold, his workload in bailing the team out isn’t likely to be back breaking. Thus, Binnington stands a better than average chance of at least putting up performances close to the improbable run fans witnessed last season.

Assuming that Binnington proves to be the goaltender St. Louis wants to keep around after the two years are up, what should scare Armstrong is the money Binnington will likely want. Although we all look at the $10 million that Sergei Bobrovsky commanded on the free agency market to sign with the Florida Panthers as an anomaly, in two years’ time that might be commonplace. If Binnington keeps playing at his same level, that price tag shouldn’t be out of the question.

Granted, the Blues do have the advantage of being able to sign him to an extension, so if they like what they see Binnington might not even hit free agency. Thus any bidding war that would drive up the price for his services could be avoided. Considering how quickly these post-Stanley Cup celebrations were conducted and arbitration was avoided, perhaps the same could be expected the next time Binnington needs to sign a new deal.