The biggest camp battle in St. Louis might not be happening up front or on the blue line. It’s in goal, where the Blues are still sorting out how much longer Jordan Binnington can hang onto the job and how firmly Joel Hofer is ready to take it.
That conversation looked different a year ago, when plenty of fans were ready to hand the crease to Hofer after he outplayed Binnington in 2024-25. Even then, the usage told part of the story: Hofer still appeared in only 31 games while Binnington got 56. Jim Montgomery flipped that balance in 2025-26, and the split moved in Hofer’s direction, with Hofer playing 46 games to Binnington’s 41.
The results only sharpened the debate. Hofer finished with a 2.61 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage, while Binnington’s season went the other way. In 41 games, he posted a 3.33 goals-against average and a .873 save percentage, numbers that hurt the team and were one of the main reasons the Blues missed the playoffs.
There was plenty of talk when Binnington was named to the Canadian Olympic team that the skaters in Italy would be much better than the ones in front of him in St. Louis.
That was ironic, given that Doug Armstrong was the one making the case. But Hofer was working behind the same group and still turned in a solid season.
By the end, the issue wasn’t just support. It was performance.
Now Binnington is staring at what amounts to one last shot in St. Louis.
The Blues will give him a chance to win his share of starts out of camp, but the reality is that the window to reclaim the full-time job may already be nearly shut. The more immediate goal could be simpler: avoiding another season in which he’s the goalie on the outside looking in.
Alex Steen would clearly prefer to see Hofer seize the crease and become the long-term answer. At the same time, the organization would not love the idea of a $6 million goaltender spending most of the year on the bench. Binnington, the 2019 Stanley Cup hero, needs to provide something meaningful this season to justify the rest of his contract, and the Blues are hoping the fact that he’s heading into a UFA year pushes him to do exactly that.
Even with all of that, the future in net belongs to Hofer. The only real question is whether he locks it down now, or whether Binnington can make camp interesting enough to steal a few starts along the way. For the Blues, the best outcome is probably the simplest one: two goaltenders they can trust.
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