GDT: Blues @ Buffalo - 6pm| BSMW + |

[BlueKnight]

Great Blues win.

Nice to see Tarasenko get a hatty. I hope he signs an extension.

I love Thomas. Sign him long term right now!!!!

 

[Blueston]

Great game; hopefully Kyrou can get his mojo back gearing up for the Wild....

Yeah, he has been dragging that line down.

 

[Brian39]

Not sure if they're the same exact ones, but Binnington has had dark blue pads for a while now. Don't see them too often, but he has used them before.

edit: Jim Thomas calls them the "Darth Vader" pads. Looks like he first busted them out in 2019.

But I agree with your larger point; the change might be good to reset his confidence. Will be interesting to see if he keeps using them.

Different pads. The ones you are talking about were black and he never wore them in a game. He wore them in the pre-bubble return to play camp in the summer of 2020 and he may have practiced in them before then. But I know he didn't wear them in the bubble, I can't recall them ever seeing a regular season game and I can't find any photo of him wearing them outside practice. It's not uncommon for equipment companies to send prototypes to NHL players for them to try out that aren't branded in the proper colors and I'm guessing that's what these were.

He wore a black/grey pad with blue/yellow accents in the all star game to match the black/grey jersey, but I don't think they saw any real game action.

He's also worn blue/red/yellow pads with our retro jerseys and a predominantly red pad with the reverse retros.

Other than breaking in these pads as a backup, I believe this is the first time he's worn a dark pad with our normal jerseys. I'm about 95% certain that this was his first time actually playing a game in our normal home/away jerseys with a pad that wasn't majority white. And last night's pads are definitely a different pad than any of the pads he wore with the retros.