St. Louis Blues Send Ty Rattie and Jordan Binnington Back to AHL Chicago Wolves
With the All-Star break now underway, the St. Louis Blues sent two players to get a week of experience in the minors.
Now that the NHL’s All-Star break has begun and the St. Louis Blues are off for the next eight days, the team made some moves on Monday morning that will benefit the organization in multiple aspects. Forward Ty Rattie and goalie Jordan Binnington were re-assigned to the AHL Chicago Wolves, though the team’s official announcement referred to the moves as “loans”, perhaps indicating that both players will be brought back to the NHL at the conclusion of the All-Star break.
Rattie and Binnington will go down to Chicago for at least the Wolves’ next three games, as the AHL All-Star break begins on February 1. For the 22-year-old Rattie, it’s an opportunity to keep playing and staying in a rhythm, which obviously is crucial for a player who’s still as green as he is. Rattie, who has dominated the AHL as a goal scorer for the past three seasons but was held without a goal in his first 18 NHL games, has been on fire since his most recent call-up on January 12. Over that time, he’s scored three goals in six games and has a plus-3 rating. If the Blues need him back after the break, they’ll want him to keep playing with that same intensity, and keeping him active may increase that possibility.
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Binnington has been up since January 9, serving as Brian Elliott‘s backup in Jake Allen‘s absence, but Elliott has started every game since then. Going back to the minors creates an opportunity for Binnington to get some solid game action after spending the past few weeks getting some experiential development, making his NHL debut during the third period of a blowout and getting the opportunity to face some talented NHL-caliber offensive players during practice.
Not too surprisingly, there are also financial ramifications involved with this move. Both players are on two-way contracts–Binnington makes the pro-rated portion of $625,000 for every game that he’s in the NHL, but just $67,500 in the minors, while Rattie makes $832,500 in the NHL and $70,000 in the AHL–so it saves money off of the salary cap to send them down.
It’s definitely within the realm of possibilities, however, that Binnington and Rattie may end up staying in the AHL after the break. There’s a very good chance that Jaden Schwartz will make his way back into the lineup on February 2 in Nashville, which would end a 45-game absence for the 23-year-old forward and likely bump Rattie from the Blues’ primary group of 12 forwards. With guys like Scottie Upshall, Dmitrij Jaskin, and Magnus Paajarvi being ineligible for assignment to the AHL without waivers, as well as being more experienced and adept at moving in and out of the lineup, it makes more sense to keep those guys as reserves at the NHL level, rather than parting ways with one of them and keeping Rattie around as an extra.
Next: How Will Blues' Lineup Come Together with Jaden Schwartz Back?
Meanwhile, not much has been disclosed about Allen’s recovery from the knee injury he suffered two weeks ago in Anaheim, but it would seem to be within the realm of possibilities that he’d be ready to return following the break. If that ends up being the case, there’d no longer be a need for Binnington, who has seen just 12:47 of action in eight games with the big club, to stick around as an emergency backup.