The Arrival of Jordan Binnington
A masked man, seemingly out of nowhere, claimed the starting goaltending job in St. Louis and transformed the Blues into a dark horse contender with sights set on an extended playoff run.
Admittedly, as much as this particular story has swelled with impressiveness, it’s become slightly bittersweet for me. When Jake Allen, a fellow New Brunswicker, burst onto the scene in St. Louis and was aptly named “the man” in charge of manning the crease this season for the Blues this season, I was beaming with a peculiar sense of… pride? At a minimum, I was rooting for the guy to be ultra successful within a market that doesn’t exactly register on the radars of most Canadians. It’s also very infrequent that a kid from my fellow Maritime province is able to break into the NHL and more rare, sustain a notable and lengthy career. Don’t get me wrong, at 28 years old and with the always-pressing need for consistent goaltending across the league, Allen may still very well achieve that goal.
However, this article isn’t about Jake Allen.
Until about a month ago, also admittedly, I hadn’t really heard of a kid named Jordan Binnington. A native of Richmond Hill, Ontario and drafted 88th overall by the St. Louis Blues all the way back…
