from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,
There are goaltenders scattered all over the minor leagues believing they are just a phone call away, one grand opportunity from being a National Hockey League stalwart.
All because Jordan Binnington did it.
Binnington managed it against all odds and with almost no expectations. He did it after parts of six seasons bouncing around with five different teams in two different leagues that weren’t the NHL. He did it with a St. Louis team that was flailing on the ropes, its season wobbling away. What he did was almost impossible and certainly improbable.
That’s the Binnington story. Or maybe that was the Binnington story.
He has that unlikely Stanley Cup ring now — that’s something his hero Curtis Joseph never attained. Binnington grew up in Richmond Hill, playing most of his minor hockey at the highest level for the Vaughan Kings. The Leafs were his team. Joseph was his idol. He even got to share goaltending duties in minor hockey with Joseph’s nephew. He got to meet Cujo, got to know him a little.
Now Binnington is a goalie somebody might be looking at circumstantially and say, “Why not me? What about my chances?”
“It’s pretty real right now,” said Binnington on the morning of his first career start at the Scotiabank Arena.
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