Dangerous target lands on Jordan Binnington’s back

St. Louis Blues goalie Jordan Binnington has a short fuse. Everyone knows it. And it sounds like many are getting sick and tired of it.

On Thursday night, Binnington exchanges words with New York Islanders centre Brock Nelson before laying into rival netminder Ilya Sorokin on the way to the dressing room at the end of the second period of the game.

While it is so stupid of Binnington to act this way, Islanders players didn’t even sound shocked after their 5-2 victory over the Blues.

“I think we’ve seen it happen before,” Anders Lee told reporters. “It doesn’t matter who it is. You just got to play through it and can’t get rattled by it.”

Lee is right. On Monday during the Blues’ fourth consecutive loss, a 5-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings, Binnington was pulled after allowing five goals on 19 shots. On his way out, he tried to engage the Kings bench, but the referees intervened.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman believes folks are getting tired of Binnington’s questionable behaviour and that consequences will come to him sooner rather than later.

“Someday someone is going to do something about it, someone’s going to call him on it and we’re going to see what happens,” explains Friedman on Friday’s 32 Thoughts podcast.

It sounds like Friedman is hinting at a goalie fight - or maybe just a fight against Binnington. Whoever he pisses up next. Now the guy has a clear target on his back, and if I were his teammate, I'm not sure I'd be in a hurry to defend him... You have to wonder what impact his attitude has in the dressing room. I get that goalies are sometimes weird and unique, but he cannot get hotheaded and then let his teammates down.

Binnington, who signed a six-year, $36 million deal back in March of 2021, is the number one goalie in St. Louis and needs to act like one.