I would think Binnington gets another start, but I'm never right...
JR posted Husso as the starter about 10 minutes after your post lol. That is just incredible timing.
I'd have gone with Husso tonight as well. He's won 8 straight starts and got the team an OT loss in relief during that stretch. He's got a .926 over that stretch, stopped 39 of 41 against Boston last week and his season-long .923 is 4th in the league. Binner has strung together a few good games and is trying to force the door back open. But even if you want to call the Minnesota game a bad one from Husso, that's his first one of those in quite some time. Those happen and one off night (where we still earn 2 points) shouldn't loosen his grip on the net.
3 good starts from Binner doesn't bring us back into a tandem situation or a goalie controversy. As of today, Husso is the starter. That can change if Husso throws out a couple more clunkers and Binner stays hot. But as of right now, their usage should remain unchanged. In the midst of a battle for home-ice, your starter should go against playoff teams in games that aren't part of a back to back. Husso is still the starter and should be going tonight.
After tonight, we go out west to play 3 non-playoff teams in 4 days. If you want to see a couple games out of Binner, play him in two of those. That gives each goalie 2 more starts in the next week before we get Colorado and Vegas to close the year. If you are thinking about starting Binner in game 1 (I don't think we should be thinking that yet), then you can get some more data in these next 4 games and then start him against Colorado and Vegas to test him against better teams. But for now, Husso is the guy, you should be signaling to him that he is the guy and he should play tonight.
I wouldn't have been upset about Binner going tonight, but I wouldn't have liked it. I think that Husso has earned more leash than parking him on the bench after a 6-5 win.
Edit: As a rule, I hate the term goalie controversy. I also don't think that we are in a goalie controversy and don't think we
should be in anything resembling a goalie controversy. Husso should be the game 1 starter unless his play drastically falls off in the next 11 days. With that said, it would be fantastic if Binner can string together 2-3 more good starts and give Berube the confidence to go to him if Husso stumbles. A playoff series is not the time for long leashes and our first round (and likely second round) opponent can score a ton of goals. I think there is a good chance that we see all of Husso, Binner, Talbot and Fleury in the opening round. Having both firing on all cylinders might be required. This absolutely could be a series that is decided when a team puts in the backup and then comes back to win the game.
Holtby lost the starter's job to Grubauer in 2018 and then won the job back in the 1st round of the playoffs. The Pens got wins out of both goalies in each of their back-to-back Cups. Darling saved the Blackhawks in round 1 in 2015 before Crawford found his game. It's not unheard of to need both goalies in a Cup run.
