I really, really don't like Army's strategy here. Outside of going 5+ years at big, big money I think a 2 year deal was literally the worst outcome for the Blues (regardless of AAV, which again, I don't have an issue with where we landed). I'm really annoyed that Binny playing as well as we all hope this season will likely mean that we're looking for a new goalie in 2021. That sucks, hard.
In a vacuum, I would have preferred a one year term for Binnington. However, given the way our cap situation is unfolding over the next few years, I think the two-year deal makes a great deal of sense.
Imagine if Binny has a huge year next season on a one-year contract. In that event, the Blues would be trying to re-sign Pietrangelo, Schenn, Dunn, and Binnington next offseason and Binny's cap hit would be much higher than his current one. That combined with what is likely to be another relatively small increase in the cap would likely prevent us from having any chance to bring back both of the UFAs or even sign a capable replacement if necessary. Frankly, I view that as the worst-case scenario.
This two-year deal is going to end at the same time as both Steen's and Bozak's (and Allen's, if he is still around) contracts, and I don't see us bringing either back unless it's at a significantly lower rate. The only other potentially large deals we will have to do that offseason are for Schwarz and Thomas coming off his ELC. In addition, we may shed a salary in the expansion draft. To top all of this off, the new American broadcast rights deal is going to take effect that offseason and that is expected to lead to a very large increase in the cap.
It's not a stretch to say we will have a full roster with somewhere around $15 million in cap space to use on Binnington that year. Money won't be the issue that offseason, not the way it will be after this coming season.
Another way to look at it is from the angle of age. At the end of this 2 year deal, he will be heading into his age 28 season and we will have a 3 season sample size of his play. Provided he proves himself to be the player we hope he is, the Blues can effectively lock him up for the rest of his career on a long term contract at that point, just as well as we could on a one year deal but with less of a sample size. I know you weren't personally advocating this, but if we had signed him to a four- to six-year deal this offseason, we would have been in the uncomfortable situation of either having to let him go with several good years of his career left or signing him to a potentially too long contract that would take him out to his late thirties.