McTavish Is Working. The Blues' Crease Is Not.

The Blues outshot Montreal 45-20 on Tuesday and lost 2-0. Jacob Fowler stopped all 45. Three nights earlier Carolina beat them 4-0. Two games, no goals, and a team that was 5-4-1 after beating Vegas 6-2 last Thursday is now 5-6-1 and below the playoff line in the West.

The easy reading is that St. Louis still cannot score, which was the problem it spent the summer trying to fix. That reading is wrong. The trade for Mason McTavish is doing exactly what it was meant to do, and the Blues are creating chances at a far better rate than they did last season. The problem is at the other end, and specifically in the games Jordan Binnington starts.

Was McTavish the right fix?

So far, emphatically yes. In September we wrote that St. Louis generated fewer chances than every team but Chicago and that McTavish, bought with two first-round picks in the same week Jordan Kyrou was sent to Washington, was the right answer to the right problem. Twelve games in, McTavish is tied for the team lead with six goals and leads the Blues outright with 36 shots and 5.3 individual expected goals across all situations.

At five-on-five he is generating 1.56 individual expected goals per 60 minutes. Among the 294 forwards who have played at least two hours at five-on-five, that is the highest rate in the league.

The team has moved with him. Last season St. Louis created 2.34 expected goals per 60 at five-on-five, 24th in the league. This season it is 2.61, 13th. The Blues have 50 per cent of the five-on-five expected goals, and the lineup is level from top to bottom: Jimmy Snuggerud is at 52 per cent with six goals, Connor McMichael, the other half of the Kyrou trade, is at 53, and Adam Jiricek is at 57 on the third pair. Kyrou has two goals and eight points in ten games in Washington.

That is an average five-on-five team, which for St. Louis is progress. An average five-on-five team with a top-three penalty kill, which the Blues also have, should not be 5-6-1.

So why have the Blues been outscored 28-20 at five-on-five?

Two reasons, of roughly equal size.

The first is finishing. St. Louis is shooting 7.8 per cent at five-on-five, 26th, and has scored 5.4 fewer goals than its chances were worth. Tuesday was the extreme version, and finishing tends to come back on its own. The second is the crease. The Blues' five-on-five save percentage is .890, 29th in the league, and all of the damage comes from one goaltender.

Binnington has played a third of the Blues' five-on-five minutes and allowed more than half of their five-on-five goals. Joel Hofer has been above average. St. Louis is 4-3-1 when Hofer starts and 1-3-0 when Binnington does.

Tuesday is worth being fair about. Binnington allowed two goals on 20 shots and lost because Fowler stopped 45. That one is not on him. The four starts together still come to a .845 save percentage, and two of the other three were losses in which he allowed six goals in Colorado and five on 24 shots in Nashville.

Is this a slump or a pattern?

A pattern. Last season Binnington played 41 games with an .873 save percentage and was 22.4 goals below expected. Of the 51 goaltenders who played 30 or more games, that was the worst figure in the league. Hofer played 46 games at .909 and 11.7 goals above expected, tied for 12th-best of the 51.

That is more than a year of the same answer. Add the two seasons together and the gap between these two goaltenders is about 42 goals saved above expected. St. Louis has one starter and a second goaltender who has been the least effective regular in the league since the start of last season.

What about Robert Thomas?

Robert Thomas is the other number that jumps off the page. The captain has one goal, six points and 12 shots in 12 games, and his individual chance rate at five-on-five is 0.43 per 60, 258th of 294 forwards. Last season he scored 25 goals and 64 points in 64 games.

The reassuring part is that the Blues still win his minutes. St. Louis has 53 per cent of the five-on-five expected goals with Thomas on the ice, so he is still driving play and setting up chances. He is simply not shooting, and a player with his finishing record will not stay at one shot a game. He is the most likely Blue to turn a 0-0 night into a win in November, and the least worrying thing on this list.

The case for patience, stated fairly

The argument for staying the course is that four starts is a tiny sample, Binnington was a Stanley Cup winner, and the save percentage that matters most for a 1B is the one in his next start. Hofer has also never carried a 60-game workload, and the Blues need a goaltender who can play the back half of back-to-backs without a coach wincing. Tuesday's loss, in particular, was not a goaltending loss.

The other side is that the real sample is four starts plus 41 games last season at the bottom of the league, and the Blues are now generating enough at five-on-five to win games that a league-average save percentage would let them win. With an average backup, the five-on-five goals against would be several lower and this would be a .500 team or better.

Our view is that St. Louis should give Hofer the clear majority of starts now, look for a backup who can be league-average for 20 to 25 games, and stop treating Binnington as half of a tandem. The forward problem it spent the summer fixing has been fixed. It would be a waste to give the gains back in the crease.

What to watch

Boston visits St. Louis on Thursday and the Blues play in Detroit on Saturday afternoon. Watch who starts the second of those games, and whether McTavish's shot volume holds up as the matchups get harder. Every Blues number is on the team stats page, and the Central race is on the standings.