Blues goaltender Joel Hofer, left, is congratulated by fellow goaltender Jordan Binnington after the Blues secured the victory in a game against the Blackhawks on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, at Enterprise Center.
Editor’s note: This is the last of 10 installments analyzing questions facing the Blues entering the 2024-25 season.
1. Can the goaltending be as good as it was a season ago?
Around the league, the performance of the Blues goaltenders last season was ... underappreciated, to say the least.
As Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer carried the Blues through portions of the 2023-24 season, their contributions went largely unnoticed by the surrounding hockey world.
Binnington ranked in the top 10 in the league in both wins (28) and save percentage (.913). Advanced statistics placed him even higher relative to his peers, as Natural Stat Trick put him second in goals saved above expected and MoneyPuck placed him fifth, according to their models. But Binnington was not one of the nine NHL goalies who received at least one vote for the Vezina Trophy, as voted on by the league’s general managers.
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Hofer led NHL rookie goalies (minimum 15 games played) with a .914 save percentage. Among all NHL goalies, Hofer ranked 17th (MoneyPuck) and 18th (Natural Stat Trick) in goals saved above expected. But because Pyotr Kochetkov started 40 games behind the league’s best defense, he was voted to the league’s All-Rookie team, as determined by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. Hofer was named on just 10 of 192 ballots.
On a team level, the Blues had one of the best tandems in the league a season ago. Behind Winnipeg (with Vezina winner Connor Hellebuyck) and Boston, St. Louis had the third-most goals saved above expected, per NST. Keep going down the list, and you’ll see familiar names of contending teams.
The Cup-winning Panthers were fourth. The Presidents Trophy-winning Rangers were sixth. The Blues had elite, Cup-contending goaltending a season ago, even if the hockey world at-large didn’t quite understand so.
So coming into this season, the goaltending should be the least questionable part of the Blues roster, right? Well, goaltending can be fickle.
Consistent Vezina Trophy contenders Andrei Vasilevskiy and Juuse Saros each just submitted the worst seasons of their careers, and both allowed more goals than expected. Sergei Bobrovsky lost his starting job the year before leading the Panthers to the Stanley Cup. Linus Ullmark never received a postseason vote for any award before his breakout Vezina-winning season in 2022-23.
Binnington himself had a declining save percentage in the four years before again becoming one of the best goalies in the league last season and putting himself in the conversation to become Canada’s starting goaltender in the 4 Nations Face-Off in February.
On the other end of the spectrum, for elite teams, goaltending has perhaps slid in importance. Stuart Skinner was one win away from winning the Cup. Adin Hill was the starting goalie when the Golden Knights won, and Darcy Kuemper was Colorado’s Cup-winning goalie.
But last year’s Blues were obviously not at that level.
In terms of controlling possession at five on five, the Blues were a bottom-five team in shot attempt share (30th), shot share (30th), scoring chance share (28th), high-danger chance share (30th) and expected goal share (30th). At five on five, the Blues more closely resembled teams like the Blackhawks and the Sharks than Western Conference playoff teams.
Binnington and Hofer helped mask that.
The Blues enter this season with a deeper roster than last year. They have more (and younger) forwards capable of contributing at the NHL level. On the back end, they have six defensemen who played at least 50 NHL games last season, and that doesn’t include Matthew Kessel or Philip Broberg.
St. Louis should be faster, deeper and younger than it was a season ago. But if the goaltending tandem of Binnington and Hofer are merely above average instead of elite, where does that leave the Blues in the standings?
