The Ledger: Pay Joel Hofer now, before Binnington's $6 million comes off

The Binnington trade noise is the wrong St. Louis story. The right one is sitting in the other crease at $3.4 million, and the Blues should price him before the market does it for them.

Jordan Binnington's deal expires in July, and Joel Hofer's does too, but only one of those is a decision, and it isn't the one everybody is talking about.

The number: .919. That's Hofer's save percentage through 12 starts, fifth among goalies with 10 or more starts, per NHL data. The league is stopping .890 this season by our count, a tick below where it sat in late October. Binnington is at .849 through five starts, which is a small sample and still a problem.

Who's actually the starter

The usage already answered the question. Hofer has 12 of the Blues' 17 starts, and seven of the last nine. Binnington has started twice in the last three weeks, by our count. That's not a tandem, whatever the depth chart says; that's a starter and a $6 million backup.

Here's the caveat: 12 starts is 12 starts, and nobody should hand out term on a dozen games, even if Hofer's last five sit at .917 and the number isn't a hot first week. The question is whether waiting costs more than it saves. With this team, it does.

Contract card: Jordan Binnington

• Term: 6 years, signed March 2021, expires July 2027 (UFA)
• AAV: $6,000,000 · Total: $36,000,000
• Structure: no signing bonuses; salary front-loaded, so the base this season is $4,500,000
• Protection: modified no-trade, a 10-team list this season
• Cap hit share: 5.8% of this season's ceiling
• Comparables at signing: Philipp Grubauer, 6 x $5.9M (2021); Thatcher Demko, 5 x $5M (2021); Juuse Saros, 4 x $5M (2021)
• Verdict: a fair starter's number when it was signed, and a backup's cap hit now.

What the trade market is really pricing

Friedman said the noise around Binnington is starting, and that there have been no extension talks. Where he goes is Gord's beat; what he costs is mine, and the cost is smaller than the cap hit suggests.

The deal carries a $6 million cap hit but only $4.5 million in base salary this season, with no bonuses. By the deadline, roughly a quarter of that cash is left. A team that retains half would carry $3 million in cap and under a million in actual dollars.

That's why this contract moves if St. Louis wants it to, and the Blues have all three retained-salary slots open as of Tuesday.

The Blues don't need the space right now so much as they need it in July. Binnington's $6 million comes off the books then no matter what, and that money has a name on it already.

Cap sheet: St. Louis Blues

• Space today: about $6.7 million, with Torey Krug on LTIR (as of Tuesday)
• Retained slots used: 0 of 3
• Contracts: 47 of 50 · Roster: 22 of 23
• Coming off in July: Binnington ($6M, UFA) and Hofer ($3.4M, RFA with arbitration rights)

Sign him now, or wait

Hofer is 26. He's a restricted free agent in July with arbitration rights and a $3.4 million qualifying offer. If St. Louis lets him play out the season as the starter, his agent walks into July with a full year of starter numbers and an arbitrator behind him.

The price: 5 years at $6.25 million, if the Blues do it now. The comparables set the floor and the ceiling. Lukas Dostal got 5 x $6.5M from Anaheim at 25 in July 2025, with a bigger track record.

Dustin Wolf got 7 x $7.5M from Calgary at 24 in September 2025, after a full season as the starter. Demko got 3 x $8.5M at 29.

Hofer sits below Dostal on resume and above him on this season's numbers, so a shade under Dostal's AAV is the fair place to land. That's my projection, built from those three deals, not a report.

Sign him now / Wait

• Cost today: about $6.25M x 5 (my projection)
• Cost next summer if he finishes at .915 as the starter: $7M-plus, with Wolf's deal as the comparable his side will use
• What the team buys: the starter's years from 26 to 31, at a cap hit that shrinks as a share of a rising ceiling
• What it risks: paying starter money on 12 starts of evidence
• The call: sign him now, and stop at five years.

The reason is the same one that keeps coming up in this column. A goalie's price is set by his most recent season, and Hofer's most recent season is being written right now, one .919 start at a time. Every week St. Louis waits, the comparable moves from Dostal to Wolf.

The club this fits

This isn't a contender's problem. The Blues are 7-8-2, 3-6 on the road, with a power play at 22.4% and a penalty kill at 84.4%, per NHL data. The retool is real, and a retool is exactly the moment to lock in the one inexpensive thing that's working before the market reprices it.

Binnington's contract was fair when he signed it. The Blues got a Cup out of the player before it and two national-team starting jobs during it. That's not a bad deal, it's a finished one.

What I'd watch: the next five Blues starts. If Hofer gets four of them, the organization has made its decision on the ice, and the only thing left is to put a number on it before January.