{"id":483651,"date":"2026-03-03T23:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/483651\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T23:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:11:09","slug":"blues-leaning-toward-trading-jordan-binnington-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/483651\/","title":{"rendered":"Blues Leaning Toward Trading Jordan Binnington \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week is shaping up to be a transformative one for the Blues. Amid mounting interest for forward cornerstone\u00a0Robert Thomas<\/a>, they\u2019ve also been fielding more sparse interest in starting goaltender Jordan Binnington<\/a>\u00a0over the last several months. That appears to be coming to a head now as NHL Network\u2019s Brian Lawton<\/a> reports they\u2019re \u201cready to move on\u201d from Binnington and that it \u201cfeels like a move is a forgone [sic] conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a sharp change in direction from the feeling surrounding Binnington as of late, which was that they were listening to offers but weren\u2019t close to seriously considering a move. He\u2019d been left off most trade boards or ranked rather low on them as a result. The Fourth Period\u2019s David Pagnotta<\/a> had him as a \u201cbubble player\u201d outside of his top-40 as of an update this morning. He was down at 24th on TSN\u2019s most recent Trade Bait<\/a> list and 43rd on Chris Johnston\u2019s list for The Athletic<\/a> yesterday.<\/p>\n

In all likelihood, his and Thomas\u2019 futures in St. Louis go hand in hand. It makes little sense for a team teetering between a moderate retool and an aggressive rebuild to move one player of either\u2019s caliber and importance but not the other. As such, it\u2019s natural that there would be an increased willingness to shop Binnington amid some intriguing offers for Thomas in the last few days from the Mammoth<\/a> and Sabres<\/a>, which\u00a0has general manager Doug Armstrong seemingly leaning toward a move in that department as well.<\/p>\n

Binnington\u2019s trade value is hard to gauge. On one hand, he\u2019s on a desirable contract for an established but inconsistent starter with a cap hit of $6MM that expires after next season. He\u2019s also coming off exceptional performances as Team Canada\u2019s starter on the international stage in back-to-back years. guiding Canada to a championship at last season\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off and putting up a .917 SV% in five games en route to a silver medal at last month\u2019s Winter Olympics. He\u2019s also a Cup champion and Calder Trophy finalist with a largely above-average track record in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

That shouldn\u2019t completely shroud the fact that Binnington has been the NHL\u2019s worst starter this season, bar none. The Blues\u2019 skater core has been below-average but not catastrophic defensively. Binnington\u2019s .867 SV% and 8-18-6 record in 31 starts this year are more individually damning than representative of the team in front of him, especially when considering backup\u00a0Joel Hofer<\/a>\u2018s .899 SV% in a similar workload. The analytics back that up \u2013 Binnington\u2019s -23.8 goals saved above expected are the worst in the league, per MoneyPuck<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The latter\u2019s hot streak as of late and intriguing track record as a prospect only make moving on from Binnington a more natural position to take, especially if St. Louis has a chance to squeeze more return value out of him now with an acquiring team getting to take two swings at a playoff run with him before he reaches free agency. Hofer has another year left at $3.4MM before becoming an arbitration-eligible free agent. He\u2019s now up to even in GSAx on the year after a rough start similar to Binnington\u2019s and has a 14-11-3 record to show for it. That includes a .905 SV% in his last 15 outings, matching his career average to this point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week is shaping up to be a transformative one for the Blues. Amid mounting interest for forward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,1268,30,4,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-483651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-jordan-binnington","10":"tag-newsstand","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-st-louis-blues"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116167775737990025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}