There are about two or three St. Louis Blues the Montreal Canadiens should try to acquire before so much as considering goalie Jordan Binnington as a trade target. In fact, if you’re Habs general manager Kent Hughes, you’d probably explore trying to trade for the other goalie in the Blues tandem, Joel Hofer, first… which probably tells you all you need to, really.
Obviously, Hofer isn’t the goalie who’s theoretically available, though. Binnington, who’s 8-17-6 with a 3.65 goals-against-average (GAA) and .865 save percentage (SV%), is. That shouldn’t be a huge shock, especially taking into account his 32 years of age, $6 million cap hit, and additional 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 with that one year left, at least according to some in the media, speaks to why the Canadiens should stay away, generally speaking. This is the goalie who won them the 2019 Stanley Cup for crying out loud. That in principle should earn him a spot on the team for as long as he wants one, but, because he’s played as badly as he has in the recent past in a uniform outside of Team Canada’s, he’s apparently on the verge of having outstayed his welcome.
Obviously there is a degree of recency bias at play based on Binnington’s performance at the Olympics and last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off representing Canada. Blues GM Doug Armstrong may want to capitalize on his goalie’s stock being as high as it is and, to the netminder’s credit, he undeniably played well at each of those tournaments, albeit with the benefit of super teams playing in front of him.
To be fair, the 2025-26 Blues aren’t exactly a fair representation of a half-decent team. So, he probably isn’t as bad as his numbers suggest. However, any arguments he’s a big-game goalie who can take the Canadiens to the next level conveniently focus solely on his international play, the Stanley Cup seven years ago now, and an admittedly impressive two-round run in 2022.
Those who make that argument conveniently disregard how Binnington went winless through two straight postseasons from 2020-21. And, if the counterpoint there is something to the effect, “That was so long ago. You can’t hold that against him. He’s not the same goalie,” you’d be right. He’s much older and less likely to hold up to the rigours of high-intensity playoff hockey. If the Blues can entertain the notion of trading a remnant hero from their 2019 championship, the Canadiens reserve the all-too-justifiable option not to so much as entertain the notion of trading for him.
Binnington vs. Montembeault
Granted, the status quo isn’t much better, in that Sam Montembeault is in the throes of a similarly horrible season. He’s 10-8-2 with a 3.34 GAA and .875 SV%, which are numbers that are still better than Binnington’s, for the record. Still, it’s understandable that the Canadiens may not be completely comfortable entering the postseason (knock on wood) going with either him or rookie Jakub Dobes (.892 SV%). The team’s sub-par goaltending is the primary reason it doesn’t make sense to make big waves at the March 6 trade deadline. Why give up resources to rent a big name if you can’t count on your goaltending to help your team improve on its first-round finish last year?
Related: 10 Stats that Define the Canadiens’ 2025-26 Season at 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 involving Montembeault going the other way, it would prove to be a lateral move at best… just for someone with practically double the cap hit.
That would just be doing the Blues a huge favour. Hughes doesn’t owe Armstrong back that much for the Zachary Bolduc-Logan Mailloux swap.
Could a Binnington-Montembeault trade ever make sense? Perhaps. For example, in the lead-up to the publishing of a The Hockey Writers article by Jesse Courville-Lynch last December, the Canadiens team at the site had been asked for their opinions. This specific writer’s thoughts at the time:
There is a world in which the Canadiens could conceivably trade Montembeault for Binnington and take on his higher cap hit, if it means also acquiring Jordan Kyrou. After all, prospect 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 at a different position while taking on a just-as-unreliable goalie, albeit at a higher cap it, fine.
Thomas the Ideal Trade Target
If the priority is to find a winger for Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, it’s a way to justify taking on — not specifically trading for — Binnington’s contract. However, at an $8.125 million cap hit, with five years remaining on his deal, Kyrou is also somewhat of a risk. And, seeing as Suzuki and Caufield remain dangerous, whether it be with Alexandre Texier or Kirby Dach on their wing, the priority should probably be to get Ivan Demidov an elite centre, which describes Robert Thomas instead. He has a matching eight-year, $65 million deal, but is one year younger with a higher proven ceiling. So, he should be the ideal target.
Some may say the Canadiens already have Oliver Kapanen, who co-leads all rookies in goals with 18, as Demidov’s centre. So, the Habs don’t need to acquire Thomas. However, Thomas actually represents so significant of an 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 22 years of age), he’s also still fairly young, to the point any failure to address the team’s goaltending this year would be forgivable, as the Habs would still be building towards the future, albeit one with an accelerated timeline, as Thomas is in his prime.
That would be the whole idea behind making a trade for Binnington, i.e., to go for it now. The only problem is Binnington doesn’t actually solve any one issue that the Canadiens face. If he’s a means to an end to get a player of Thomas’ or Kyrou’s calibre, so be it. If he’s the centrepiece, you’re going all in at the wrong table. If you’re truly 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, everyone’s read the book on him by now. You’d do much better to rush Fowler to the NHL as your playoff starter, but that’s the same level of crazy, just a different flavour. Why try to rush anything at all, based on the team’s proven linear growth?
Whereas trading Kapanen in a deal for Thomas represents an upgrade at centre, trading just Montembeault in a deal for Binnington realistically doesn’t do much of any significance on the ice, while adding to the team’s cap for next season. That would just make it harder for them to contend, when they should be one year closer to contending, if not contending outright.
Granted, this implies the Blues wouldn’t be retaining any salary. However, in a world where Binnington is a “big-game” goalie, why would they? Especially if you’re giving up additional assets to acquire him. It would obviously be the privilege of any self-respecting team to have the honour of employing the services of Binnington… except of course the Blues, who would be trying to trade him off their team in this scenario.
Make it make sense. Please.