OT: Should Doug Armstrong get fired?

[BlueSeal]

I don't see how you can completely dismiss any and all concerns about the goaltending.

Binner at his best is a top 10 NHL goalie. When he's on, he's as good as anyone at getting square and making the first stop. He's very good against the rush, he's a great puckhandler and he battles well to overcome his below average lateral mobility. But he's struggled to be on his game as much as you need a 55+ start guy to be on his game. We got 'on his game' Binner in the playoffs, but he struggled for long stretches last season.

I'm not too low on Binner and have a decent degree of confidence in him. But he's coming off a season where he put up a .901 SV%, a -6.4 GSAA and only started 37 games because his partner won the net.

The new backup has been a good NHL goalie in the past, but he'll turn 37 mid-season and put up an .891 last season. Maybe you can chalk that up to playing behind a bad Wings team, but his partner was noticeably better (.901) and Greiss had a .912 the previous season behind that same team. He might be washed.

Every other goalie in the organization is 22 or younger. There is upside in that group, but none of them are ready for the NHL barring a massive leap forward this summer.

There are very real reasons for concern. I'm optimistic that it will be perfectly fine, but there are real red flags that shouldn't be ignored.

Netminding is the one area that doesn’t concern me. We’re deep.

 

[Reality Czech]

I don't see how you can completely dismiss any and all concerns about the goaltending.

Binner at his best is a top 10 NHL goalie. When he's on, he's as good as anyone at getting square and making the first stop. He's very good against the rush, he's a great puckhandler and he battles well to overcome his below average lateral mobility. But he's struggled to be on his game as much as you need a 55+ start guy to be on his game. We got 'on his game' Binner in the playoffs, but he struggled for long stretches last season.

I'm not too low on Binner and have a decent degree of confidence in him. But he's coming off a season where he put up a .901 SV%, a -6.4 GSAA and only started 37 games because his partner won the net.

The new backup has been a good NHL goalie in the past, but he'll turn 37 mid-season and put up an .891 last season. Maybe you can chalk that up to playing behind a bad Wings team, but his partner was noticeably better (.901) and Greiss had a .912 the previous season behind that same team. He might be washed.

Every other goalie in the organization is 22 or younger. There is upside in that group, but none of them are ready for the NHL barring a massive leap forward this summer.

There are very real reasons for concern. I'm optimistic that it will be perfectly fine, but there are real red flags that shouldn't be ignored.

Superstar goalies don't grow on trees, and if a team doesn't draft them they are pretty difficult to acquire via trade or free agency. Are there some potential concerns with Binnington? Sure, but I fail to see any realistic alternative that would satisfy the concerns you mentioned. We have a goalie who's good enough to win a Stanley Cup and I feel pretty good about that.

 

[STL fan in MN]

Netminding is the one area that doesn’t concern me. We’re deep.

Quantity doesn’t always equate to quality.

Binny is a quality goalie. An inconsistent one but he has the ability to be very good.

Greiss? No. Career backup whose best days are behind him.

There’s some decent potential in the group of Hofer, Zherenko and Ellis but as of today, they can’t reasonably be counted on to be quality NHL netminders.

I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to say that goaltending is more of a weakness now with Greiss replacing Husso. Husso showed he was starter quality. Greiss is likely in the back half of backups league-wide. Obviously having 2 guys of starter caliber is better than 1.

The downgrade in goal was necessary due to the Cap and Husso wanting/earning a starting role elsewhere but that doesn’t mean the downgrade didn’t occur and that thus makes the goaltending position for the Blues weaker and more of a question mark. The Husso safety net (which was needed last season) is now gone.

 

[Brian39]

Superstar goalies don't grow on trees, and if a team doesn't draft them they are pretty difficult to acquire via trade or free agency. Are there some potential concerns with Binnington? Sure, but I fail to see any realistic alternative that would satisfy the concerns you mentioned. We have a goalie who's good enough to win a Stanley Cup and I feel pretty good about that.

I'm not criticizing the organization or suggesting that we took a wrong turn this offseason. I think that spending $4M on Leddy was a better decision than tying up $10M on the goaltending. I don't think we had a better alternative this summer. That doesn't mean that we are a lock to get good enough goaltending.

If both of our goaltenders play like they played last season, we have a bottom 10 tandem in the league. I don't think that will happen, but it is far from a 'well you can never predict goalies so of course that is possible' scenario.

If one of our goaltenders bounces back to his level of play from 2020/21, then we will have noticeably worse goaltending than last year.

If both of our goaltenders bounce back to their level of play from 2020/21, then we will have slightly worse goaltending than last year (neither as good as Husso was last year, but both better than Binner was).

If we get the pre-COVID version of Binner, then the goaltending will be on par to last season. Better if we get rookie year Binner.

I feel pretty confident that Binner will bounce back to 2020/21 level play with an outside chance of being a touch more consistent. I have much less confidence in Greiss giving us 20-30 starts at roughly .910 goaltending.

I'm not predicting that our goaltending will be garbage, but it is absolutely the #1 potential reason we could miss the playoffs this year. Binner's 18-14-4 record was good for a 91 standings point pace last season. He wasn't good enough to get a top 5 offense into playoff position last year. We made the playoffs because of the safety net Husso provided (which ultimately led to Husso winning the #1 job in the 2nd half of the season). I'm not sold that Greiss offers the same safety net.

The Blues forced themselves to ride or die with Binner when they gave him top 10 starter money (which was a direct result of the inexplicable 2 year deal that walked him straight to his first summer of potential UFA eligibility). At that point, we committed to a strategy of cheap backups that hopefully wouldn't be required to be anything more than adequate. We needed (and fortunately got) more than that from Husso last year, which priced him out of our cap structure. We are once again going to ride or die with Binner and I don't view Greiss as capable of providing 30+ starts as a top 10 goalie if Binner falters.

There are worse situations to be in and I don't think there were any realistic backup options that would have put us in better shape. But there is absolutely reason to worry about the goaltending, because it is the only thing besides injuries that has a realistic shot of tanking this season.

 

[TK 421]

Managing your starters workload is critical when it comes to maintaining quality starts. Binnington has played his best hockey when his backup is actually capable of shouldering a significant amount of the load. His amazing rookie season that resulted in our 1st Cup was achieved with Jake Allen in a tandem arrangement. Last season he lost the starter spot to Husso which obviously helped lighten his load and we saw a .949 save % goalie in the PO's as a result. I don't think those two situations are a coincidence, I think it's a direct result of a lighter workload. That's why some of us have concerns. We essentially swapped a structurally flawed defense for a structurally flawed goalie situation. I'll take that swap but I'm concerned that Greiss can't give Binny the lighter workload he needs to give us his highest quality starts.

Side note: HF notified me yesterday that I was awarded a trophy called 'Lifer'. Turns out I've been here 15 years as of yesterday. Time flies when you're having fun and I'm happy hanging out with you savages.

 

[TheDizee]

if we had chucky we would have the best tandem in the NHL

 

[Brian39]

Managing your starters workload is critical when it comes to maintaining quality starts. Binnington has played his best hockey when his backup is actually capable of shouldering a significant amount of the load. His amazing rookie season that resulted in our 1st Cup was achieved with Jake Allen in a tandem arrangement. Last season he lost the starter spot to Husso which obviously helped lighten his load and we saw a .949 save % goalie in the PO's as a result. I don't think those two situations are a coincidence, I think it's a direct result of a lighter workload. That's why some of us have concerns. We essentially swapped a structurally flawed defense for a structurally flawed goalie situation. I'll take that swap but I'm concerned that Greiss can't give Binny the lighter workload he needs to give us his highest quality starts.

Side note: HF notified me yesterday that I was awarded a trophy called 'Lifer'. Turns out I've been here 15 years as of yesterday. Time flies when you're having fun and I'm happy hanging out with you savages.

I'll push back about his rookie year being a tandem situation. Allen was the guy until Binner started started his 1st game on January 7th and then Binner was immediately ridden like a starter. In the 2 months following Binner's first start, Allen only played a single game that wasn't part of a back-to-back. 10 of the 13 games Allen played in the back half of the season came as part of a back-to-back. All in all, Binner started 30 of the team's final 43 games. They split each back-to-back and then Binner got 20 of the 23 games that aren't scheduled as a backup start. That's a 57 start pace over 82 games, which is 'clear starter' territory in the NHL. Only 10 goalies started 57 games in 2018/19 and only 6 hit that mark last year.

Now, I agree that his excellent play was still helped along by managing his workload. He only had 16 AHL games before his call up, so his start total for the regular season was 46. He also had about a month with the big club where he was simply practicing and made 2 relief appearances. He was fresh to start that run, but it wasn't quite a tandem approach since he then played a ton of hockey from January-June.

I don't think we need a goalie to push him as a 1B that approaches 35 starts. We need the 25(ish) starts that is the expectation of a modern backup goalie in order to keep your goalie at 57 or fewer starts. I share your concern that Greiss isn't going to give us good enough play to be trusted 25 times this year.

 

[TK 421]

I'll push back about his rookie year being a tandem situation. Allen was the guy until Binner started started his 1st game on January 7th and then Binner was immediately ridden like a starter. In the 2 months following Binner's first start, Allen only played a single game that wasn't part of a back-to-back. 10 of the 13 games Allen played in the back half of the season came as part of a back-to-back. All in all, Binner started 30 of the team's final 43 games. They split each back-to-back and then Binner got 20 of the 23 games that aren't scheduled as a backup start. That's a 57 start pace over 82 games, which is 'clear starter' territory in the NHL. Only 10 goalies started 57 games in 2018/19 and only 6 hit that mark last year.

Now, I agree that his excellent play was still helped along by managing his workload. He only had 16 AHL games before his call up, so his start total for the regular season was 46. He also had about a month with the big club where he was simply practicing and made 2 relief appearances. He was fresh to start that run, but it wasn't quite a tandem approach since he then played a ton of hockey from January-June.

I don't think we need a goalie to push him as a 1B that approaches 35 starts. We need the 25(ish) starts that is the expectation of a modern backup goalie in order to keep your goalie at 57 or fewer starts. I share your concern that Greiss isn't going to give us good enough play to be trusted 25 times this year.

Sounds like our best approach may need to rely on improved 5v5 play and just risking substandard starts from Greiss to keep Binny under 57 starts?

 

[Brian39]

Sounds like our best approach may need to rely on improved 5v5 play and just risking substandard starts from Greiss to keep Binny under 57 starts?

Yeah, if you can stay fairly comfortably above the playoff cut line with that approach then absolutely. And I think the odds are good that we can do that. But if Greiss is giving you sub-.900 goaltending through 25+ starts then you probably have to play at a 105+ point pace with Binner in net in order to stay far enough ahead of the playoff cut line to stick with your plan.

It's easy to talk about workload management in the summer. It's a lot harder to keep running out your backup every third game when he is actively costing you points and you're sitting just 3-4 points ahead of the playoff cut line.

 

[TK 421]

Yeah, if you can stay fairly comfortably above the playoff cut line with that approach then absolutely. And I think the odds are good that we can do that. But if Greiss is giving you sub-.900 goaltending through 25+ starts then you probably have to play at a 105+ point pace with Binner in net in order to stay far enough ahead of the playoff cut line to stick with your plan.

It's easy to talk about workload management in the summer. It's a lot harder to keep running out your backup every third game when he is actively costing you points and you're sitting just 3-4 points ahead of the playoff cut line.

Yeah you're right Brian and it gets even scarier if Binny struggles.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Yeah, if you can stay fairly comfortably above the playoff cut line with that approach then absolutely. And I think the odds are good that we can do that. But if Greiss is giving you sub-.900 goaltending through 25+ starts then you probably have to play at a 105+ point pace with Binner in net in order to stay far enough ahead of the playoff cut line to stick with your plan.

It's easy to talk about workload management in the summer. It's a lot harder to keep running out your backup every third game when he is actively costing you points and you're sitting just 3-4 points ahead of the playoff cut line.

Greiss should be fine now that he is behind nhl defense again.

 

[Xerloris]

I don't see how you can completely dismiss any and all concerns about the goaltending.

Binner at his best is a top 10 NHL goalie. When he's on, he's as good as anyone at getting square and making the first stop. He's very good against the rush, he's a great puckhandler and he battles well to overcome his below average lateral mobility. But he's struggled to be on his game as much as you need a 55+ start guy to be on his game. We got 'on his game' Binner in the playoffs, but he struggled for long stretches last season.

I'm not too low on Binner and have a decent degree of confidence in him. But he's coming off a season where he put up a .901 SV%, a -6.4 GSAA and only started 37 games because his partner won the net.

The new backup has been a good NHL goalie in the past, but he'll turn 37 mid-season and put up an .891 last season. Maybe you can chalk that up to playing behind a bad Wings team, but his partner was noticeably better (.901) and Greiss had a .912 the previous season behind that same team. He might be washed.

Every other goalie in the organization is 22 or younger. There is upside in that group, but none of them are ready for the NHL barring a massive leap forward this summer.

There are very real reasons for concern. I'm optimistic that it will be perfectly fine, but there are real red flags that shouldn't be ignored.

All our goaltending needs to be is average until we get to the playoffs and I am a firm believer that Binnington was perfectly fine last year until he had covid. You can't forsee injury or illness so I see no reason to worry about that until we have to.

 

[Reality Czech]

I'm not criticizing the organization or suggesting that we took a wrong turn this offseason. I think that spending $4M on Leddy was a better decision than tying up $10M on the goaltending. I don't think we had a better alternative this summer. That doesn't mean that we are a lock to get good enough goaltending.

If both of our goaltenders play like they played last season, we have a bottom 10 tandem in the league. I don't think that will happen, but it is far from a 'well you can never predict goalies so of course that is possible' scenario.

If one of our goaltenders bounces back to his level of play from 2020/21, then we will have noticeably worse goaltending than last year.

If both of our goaltenders bounce back to their level of play from 2020/21, then we will have slightly worse goaltending than last year (neither as good as Husso was last year, but both better than Binner was).

If we get the pre-COVID version of Binner, then the goaltending will be on par to last season. Better if we get rookie year Binner.

I feel pretty confident that Binner will bounce back to 2020/21 level play with an outside chance of being a touch more consistent. I have much less confidence in Greiss giving us 20-30 starts at roughly .910 goaltending.

I'm not predicting that our goaltending will be garbage, but it is absolutely the #1 potential reason we could miss the playoffs this year. Binner's 18-14-4 record was good for a 91 standings point pace last season. He wasn't good enough to get a top 5 offense into playoff position last year. We made the playoffs because of the safety net Husso provided (which ultimately led to Husso winning the #1 job in the 2nd half of the season). I'm not sold that Greiss offers the same safety net.

The Blues forced themselves to ride or die with Binner when they gave him top 10 starter money (which was a direct result of the inexplicable 2 year deal that walked him straight to his first summer of potential UFA eligibility). At that point, we committed to a strategy of cheap backups that hopefully wouldn't be required to be anything more than adequate. We needed (and fortunately got) more than that from Husso last year, which priced him out of our cap structure. We are once again going to ride or die with Binner and I don't view Greiss as capable of providing 30+ starts as a top 10 goalie if Binner falters.

There are worse situations to be in and I don't think there were any realistic backup options that would have put us in better shape. But there is absolutely reason to worry about the goaltending, because it is the only thing besides injuries that has a realistic shot of tanking this season.

Valid concerns, won't debate anything you said. But I imagine that a large percentage of teams have some kind of goalie concerns heading into the season. It fluctuates so much from year to year, and there are a lot of factors that go into getting consistent results in net. If Greiss doesn't work out or gets injured, it's not that hard to find other options. Who knows, maybe Hofer can contribute sooner than expected. Personally I think Greiss will be good enough with a solid team in front of him, but we will see. The only thing that would concern me is a long-term Binnington injury, but don't really wanna think about that possibility.

 

[Brian39]

Greiss should be fine now that he is behind nhl defense again.

Last year the Red Wings were 28th in xGA at 5 on 5. The Blues were 29th. The Wings were 31st in scoring chances against while the Blues were 27th. The gap was better for shots against (we were 23rd and they were 30th) and high danger chances (we were 22nd and they were 32nd).

We weren't as bad as the Wings defensively, but we weren't a good defensive team. And our improvement on the blueline happened to be a Red Wing last season. Playing behind a better team should help him, but I'm not remotely confident that his play was all on the D.

His GSAA at 5 on 5 was -10.35 and his goals saved above expected was -11.45 through just 31 games. He faced fewer rush attempts per 60 than Binner or Husso last year (80th most in the NHL, which is below the average) and his average goal distance was middle of the pack. He was still genuinely bad when you control for the quality of shots faced.

Goalies fall off hard in their mid 30s all the time. Halak was a .920 backup in Boston until he was suddenly .905 in his final year there as a 35 year old. Khudobin was a .930 backup who then took the Stars on a run to the final in 2020. The next year he sported a .905 at 34 and then last year he was a disaster when he wasn't on the IR.

I'm hopeful that last year was a one off on a bad team, but I wouldn't bet a ton of money on it. A healthy bounce back from last year could very well be him playing .900-.905 hockey, which isn't all that good.

 

[TheDizee]

goaltending is always a concern. it can sink a team fast. Binner had a very lousy season last year and Chuckie & Husso saved his bacon. We are not close to a playoff team otherwise.

Greiss sucks ass and is a dumpster dive move. This will be another Chad Johnson. Shame on Army for letting Chuckie go.

 

[Reality Czech]

goaltending is always a concern. it can sink a team fast. Binner had a very lousy season last year and Chuckie & Husso saved his bacon. We are not close to a playoff team otherwise.

Greiss sucks ass and is a dumpster dive move. This will be another Chad Johnson. Shame on Army for letting Chuckie go.

I can't believe the Blues went into the 2018-19 season with Chad Johnson as the backup. Totally ruined our chances of winning a Stanley Cup that season.

By the way, who ended up replacing him that year? The name slips my mind.

 

[TK 421]

I can't believe the Blues went into the 2018-19 season with Chad Johnson as the backup. Totally ruined our chances of winning a Stanley Cup that season.

By the way, who ended up replacing him that year? The name slips my mind.

Hofer Stanley Cup Champion in 2023 confirmed.

 

[stl76]

Hofer Stanley Cup Champion in 2023 confirmed.

I know you're joking here, but I do wonder what (if anything) the Greiss signing says about how the org views Hofer.

IIRC the Johnson signing was seen as a short term stop gap until Husso was ready. I wonder if the Greiss signing is seen as a similar move and the org thinks Hofer will be ready sooner than later...maybe ready for full time back up next year?

 

[STL fan in MN]

I know you're joking here, but I do wonder what (if anything) the Greiss signing says about how the org views Hofer.

IIRC the Johnson signing was seen as a short term stop gap until Husso was ready. I wonder if the Greiss signing is seen as a similar move and the org thinks Hofer will be ready sooner than later...maybe ready for full time back up next year?

I would say that’s precisely why they signed a stop-gap guy to a 1 year contract.

 

[Vladys Gumption]

if we had chucky we would have the best tandem in the NHL

Ah yes, the guy with a .903 save percentage in 170 career AHL games is certainly the missing link in having a top tier goaltending tandem.

Give me a break.

 

[BlueSeal]

Ah yes, the guy with a .903 save percentage in 170 career AHL games is certainly the missing link in having a top tier goaltending tandem.

Give me a break.

So would you take Greiss or Chucky?

Take your time, I’ll wait.

Saying that, Greiss is going to shut a lot of people up. He’s a solid netminder and honestly a stopgap for Hofer, who I’d prefer to run with in the soon future than Husso.

 

[BlueSeal]

Ah yes, the guy with a .903 save percentage in 170 career AHL games is certainly the missing link in having a top tier goaltending tandem.

Give me a break.

A netminder the -team- will fight for. Well liked, well respected with no fear and upside, a stabilizing force whose career is atad above .900. That’s a dangerously good combination.

Sometimes you take chances and do things that are considered nuts. Running Binny as a rookie starter, that’s nuts but we did it because we had nuts and got a Cup. Do we have the nuts to do it again or are we going to prefer mediocre results because it “keeps us competitive” - whatever that means.

There’s no right or wrong answer here, only the results from whatever decision you make. I would have run Sideburns against the Avs when Binny went down. We knew they lived rent-free in Husso’s head, to start him and expect something different, is stupid. Take a chance when the walls are falling or you’ll never know. That’s the mark of good coaching imo, at least that was what happened that got us a Cup: we took chances.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

So would you take Greiss or Chucky?

Take your time, I’ll wait.

Saying that, Greiss is going to shut a lot of people up. He’s a solid netminder and honestly a stopgap for Hofer, who I’d prefer to run with in the soon future than Husso.

I'd rather have Greiss for one year than Chucky for three. But, I'd rather have Chucky for one year than Griess for one year.

But again, DA offered Chucky a contract and Chucky declined the offer.

I'm also less worried about Greiss for one season. He's been a fairly good goalie for his entire Career until last year when Detroit made him and one of the previous years Finalist for the Calder look like Swiss cheese.

 

[Vladys Gumption]

So would you take Greiss or Chucky?

Take your time, I’ll wait.

Saying that, Greiss is going to shut a lot of people up. He’s a solid netminder and honestly a stopgap for Hofer, who I’d prefer to run with in the soon future than Husso.

I’d have rather have been able to stick with Husso. I would have been fine with Lindgren being given a chance to win the backup role, but the assertions that he’s a savior is absolutely asinine. We’re not talking about somebody that’s an established high end starter.

 

[Reality Czech]

So would you take Greiss or Chucky?

Take your time, I’ll wait.

Saying that, Greiss is going to shut a lot of people up. He’s a solid netminder and honestly a stopgap for Hofer, who I’d prefer to run with in the soon future than Husso.

Personally I'd rather have Greiss, he's been considered an NHL goalie for a much longer time. There's a reason teams saw Lindgren as a 3/4 string goalie up until a brief hot streak last year.

But I don't think the difference between the two is big enough to even debate. Backup goalies are a dime a dozen.