There are about two or three St. Louis Blues that the Montreal Canadiens should try to acquire before they would even consider goaltender Jordan Binnington as a trade target. If you’re Habs general manager Kent Hughes, you’d probably first try to trade for the other goalie in the Blues tandem, Joel Hofer… which probably tells you all you need.
It is clear that Hofer is not the goalkeeper that is theoretically available. Binnington, who is 8-17-6 with a goals-against average (GAA) of 3.65 and a save percentage of .865 (SV%), is. That shouldn’t be a huge shock, especially when you consider his 32 years, $6 million cap hit and an extra year under contract before he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
If he’s so great, why would Binnington be available?
That the Blues would consider trading him at least for that one year according to some in the mediatalks about why the Canadiens should stay away in general. This is the goalie who won them the 2019 Stanley Cup for crying out loud. That should basically get him a spot on the team for as long as he wants one, but having played as poorly as he has in the recent past in a uniform outside of Team Canada’s, he’s apparently about to overstay his welcome.
Clearly there is a degree of recency at play, based on Binnington’s performances at the Olympics and last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off representing Canada. Blues GM Doug Armstrong may want to take advantage of his goaltender’s stock being as high as it is right now, and to the netminder’s credit, he played undeniably well in each of those tournaments, albeit with the benefit of super teams playing for him.
To be fair, the 2025/26 Blues aren’t exactly a fair representation of a half-decent team. So he’s probably not that bad as his numbers suggest. However, any arguments that he’s a goaltender who can take the Canadiens to the next level can conveniently focus solely on his international play, the Stanley Cup now seven years ago, and an admittedly impressive two-round run in 2022.
Those making that argument conveniently ignore how Binnington went winless in back-to-back postseasons in 2020-2021. And if the counterpoint is something like: “That was so long ago. You can’t blame him. He’s not the same goalkeeper,” then you’re right. He is much older and less able to tolerate the rigors of intense playoff hockey. If the Blues can entertain the idea of trading a holdover hero from their 2019 championship, the Canadiens reserve the all-too-justified option of not entertaining the idea of trading so much. for it.
Binnington vs. Montembeault
Granted, the status quo isn’t much better, as Sam Montembeault is in the throes of a similarly terrible season. He’s 10-8-2 with a GAA of 3.34 and an SV% of .875, which are numbers that are still better than Binnington’s, for the record. Still, it’s understandable that the Canadiens might not feel entirely comfortable entering the postseason (knock on wood) going with him or rookie Jakub Dobes (.892 SV%). The team’s subpar goaltending is the main reason it doesn’t make sense to make big waves at the March 6 trade deadline. Why give up resources to hire a big name if you can’t count on your goaltending to help your team improve on last year’s first round?
Related: 10 stats that will define the Canadiens’ 2025-26 season during the Olympic break
It would amount to a waste of resources. So naturally, some are suggesting the Canadiens waste resources on acquiring Binnington, when all logic dictates that, in a hypothetical trade where Montembeault goes the other way, this would prove to be a lateral move at best…only for someone with practically double the cap hit.
That would do the Blues a great favor. Hughes doesn’t owe Armstrong anything That much for the Zachary Bolduc/Logan Mailloux trade.
Could a Binnington-Montembeault trade ever make sense? Maybe. For example, in the run-up to the publication of a Jesse Courville-Lynch’s Hockey Writers article last December, the Canadiens team at the venue was asked for their opinion. This particular writer’s thoughts at the time:
There’s a world where the Canadiens could trade Montembeault for Binnington and acquire his higher cap hit, if that means also acquiring Jordan Kyrou. After all, potential Jacob Fowler (or Dobes) is/are the future in net and both Montembeault and Binnington have contracts that expire at the same time. If you can upgrade in another position while going up against an equally unreliable goalkeeper, albeit with a higher cap, great.
Thomas the ideal trading target
If the priority is finding a winger for Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, that’s one way to justify taking Binnington’s contract, not specifically trading for it. However, with a cap hit of $8.125 million and five years to go, Kyrou is also somewhat of a risk. And with Suzuki and Caufield remaining dangerous, whether with Alexandre Texier or Kirby Dach on their wing, the priority should probably be giving Ivan Demidov an elite center, which describes Robert Thomas instead. He has a matching eight-year, $65 million deal, but is a year younger with a higher proven ceiling. So he should be the ideal target.
Some might say the Canadiens already have Oliver Kapanen, who leads all rookies in goals with 18, at center for Demidov. So the Habs don’t have to acquire Thomas. However, Thomas actually represents such a significant upgrade that hypothetically giving up Kapanen as part of a larger deal to acquire him would arguably make sense. At 26 (compared to Kapanen’s age of 22), he’s also still quite young, to the point that any inability to address the team’s goaltending this year would be forgivable as the Habs would still be building for the future, albeit on an accelerated timeline as Thomas is in his prime.
That would be the whole idea behind trading for Binnington, i.e. going for it now. The only problem is that Binnington doesn’t actually solve any of the problems the Canadiens face. If he is a means to acquire a player of Thomas or Kyrou’s caliber, then so be it. If he’s the center, you’re going all-in at the wrong table. If you’re really in a rush to win this season and want the Binnington who won the Cup seven years ago, who took the league by storm as a relative unknown, then everyone has read the book on him by now. You’d be much better off rushing Fowler to the NHL as your playoff starter, but that’s the same level of crazy, just a different flavor. Why rush anything at all, based on the team’s proven linear growth?
While trading Kapanen in a deal for Thomas represents an upgrade at center, trading just Montembeault in a deal for Binnington doesn’t realistically have much on-ice significance while adding to the team’s cap space for next season. That would only make it harder for them to compete, when they should be a year closer to contention, if not outright.
Granted, this implies the Blues would not retain any salary. But why would they do that in a world where Binnington is a big game goalie? Especially if you give up additional assets to acquire it. It would clearly be the prerogative of any self-respecting team to have the honor of utilizing Binnington’s services… except of course the Blues, who would try to trade him from their team in this scenario.
Make it meaningful. Please.
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