Blues’ goalie Binnington focused on his game with Olympic selection looming

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Blues’ goalie Binnington focused on his game with Olympic selection looming

2025-12-09 07:05 Last Updated At：07:30

MONTREAL (AP) — Jordan Binnington knows the chatter is out there. He’s leaning on the mindset that’s pulled him through tough stretches before.

The goalie who backstopped Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off opened the NHL season as the front-runner to start in February’s Milan-Cortina Games. But a sluggish start — for both him and the St. Louis Blues — has raised questions about where he fits in Canada’s Olympic plan.

“I’m aware of what’s going on, and you want to put yourself in the best position to make that team and make it easy for people making the decision,” he told The Canadian Press. “At the same time, I feel like I’ve been around the league for a decent amount of time and I know that if I control my inner world and what I need to do to feel at my best, then the rest will take care of itself.

“That’s where my focus goes.”

Sunday night was a step in that direction.

Binnington made 23 saves in a 4-3 victory over the Montreal Canadiens, thwarting several Grade-A chances — including a last-second look from Canadiens sniper Cole Caufield in the crease — to earn his seventh win this season.

It was a strong outing amid a difficult campaign for the 32-year-old from Ontario, who’s posting career-low stats across the board.

Binnington has a .875 save percentage, ranking 68th leaguewide and sixth-last among goalies with at least 10 games played. His minus-10.86 goals-saved above average, measuring how a goalie compares to the league average, is also fifth-worst according to analytics website Natural Stat Trick.

“Numbers aren’t necessarily where you want them to be,” the 6-foot-2, 172-pound netminder said. “I’ve been approaching it as just focusing on my own process and what I need to feel good at the right time. I’m building my game every day, and that’s all I can do is control what I can control.

“The more I do that the more things will come out and fall into place.”

Binnington said he hasn’t spoken to Canada’s management team about the Olympic selection less than a month away — Doug Armstrong is both the general manager for St. Louis and the Canadian team.

“We haven’t talked about it at all. I think nothing needs to be said really, just do your job, focus here and the better the St. Louis Blues do, the better that is for that situation as well,” he said.

One thing working in Binnington’s favor is his proven ability to step up in big moments.

He led St. Louis to the Stanley Cup in 2019, rising from minor-league goalie to season savior and playoff hero in a few short months.

The fiery netminder — also known for his short temper — showed the same clutch play during the 4 Nations final, turning aside 31 of 33 American shots in Canada’s 3-2 win, including a game-saving desperation glove stop on Auston Matthews in overtime.

“If you’re looking at statistics, you would, you know … but Binnington is such a winner,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “It doesn’t matter the stage, he always has the ability to bounce back because of his mental toughness, his belief in himself, and he was outstanding (Sunday).”

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Trump administration takes steps to ease sanction on Russian oil

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. Treasury Department announced Thursday it was taking steps to further ease sanctions on Russian oil as crude prices surge during the Iran war.

The agency said that it was granting a license that authorizes the delivery and sale of some sanctioned Russia crude oil and petroleum products for the next month.

Trump signaled earlier this week that he would take further action to ease restrictions on sanctioned oil to help make for the loss of oil flowing on the market because of the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The move follows the Trump administration granting temporary permission for India to buy Russian oil.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s secretive new leader issued his first public statements Thursday, resolving to keep fighting, promising more pain for Gulf Arab states and threatening to open “other fronts” in a war that has already disrupted world energy supplies, the global economy and international travel.

The hard-line stance revealed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country's attacks were creating conditions for the Iranian population to topple the government.

“It is in your hands,” Netanyahu said at a news conference, addressing the Iranian people. “We are creating the optimal conditions for the fall of the regime.”

Since the start of the war, U.S. and Israeli strikes have targeted security checkpoints in Iran to undermine the government’s ability to suppress dissent, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, the U.S-based independent monitoring group known as ACLED.

Netanyahu denounced Khamenei as a “puppet of the Revolutionary Guards."

Khamenei is close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and is widely seen as even less compromising than his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His location is unknown, and he is likely a prime target for the U.S. and Israel.

Khamenei said in a statement read by a state TV news anchor that he was keeping a “file of revenge.” He did not appear on camera and has not been seen since his father and wife were killed in the war’s opening salvo, which also wounded him, according to an Iranian ambassador.

The war continued to escalate on its 13th day as oil prices spiraled up again to $100 per barrel, and stocks sank worldwide over fears that the conflict could drag on longer than hoped.

Iran has made clear it plans to keep up attacks on energy infrastructure across the region and use the effective closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz as leverage against the United States and Israel.

At a news conference Thursday, Iran’s ambassador to Tunisia, Mir Masoud Hosseinian, said Iranian naval forces “have established full control” over the strait and “carried out precise strikes in response to attacks on our oil infrastructure.” A fifth of the world’s traded oil flows through the waterway leading from the Persian Gulf toward the Indian Ocean.

“Global energy security is contingent on respect for Iran’s sovereignty,” he said.

He told The Associated Press the new supreme leader was wounded in the attack on his family’s home, but “it is not serious.” The hope is he will attend the massive, state-organized Eid prayer next week that his father traditionally led.

Hosseinian added that Iran’s strikes on Gulf nations have also been strategic.

“Even when we targeted hotels, we had precise information that they were hosting American and Israeli soldiers,” he said.

Khamenei called on Gulf Arabs to “shut down” U.S. bases in the region, saying protection promised by Washington was “nothing more than a lie.”

He also said Iran has studied “opening other fronts in which the enemy has little experience and would be highly vulnerable” if the war continues. He did not elaborate, but Iran has been linked to previous attacks on U.S., Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in a social media post Thursday that ensuring Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon was a higher priority than soaring oil prices.

Hours later, Netanyahu announced Israeli attacks had killed a top Iranian nuclear scientist and hit others but gave few details.

Israel said earlier it struck a nuclear facility in Iran in recent days that it had destroyed with an airstrike in October 2024. Earlier this year, satellite photos raised concerns that Iran was working to restore the facility.

As Netanyahu spoke, the Israeli military said it had detected a new barrage of missiles launched from Iran toward Israel.

The U.S. military said American forces have now struck more than 6,000 targets since the operation against Iran began, including more than 30 minelaying vessels.

British officials said several U.S. personnel suffered minor injuries Wednesday night when drone strikes in northern Iraq hit a base in Irbil that houses both British and American troops.

And on Thursday in western Iraq, rescue efforts were underway after an American military refueling plane went down. U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said in a statement that the mishap involved two aircraft, including one that landed safely, and that the cause was not related to hostilities.

Israeli warplanes pummeled Lebanon, targeting even the busy heart of Beirut, in response to missiles from Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters launched into Israel. One strike hit in a neighborhood that is close to Lebanon’s parliament, United Nations offices and international embassies.

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said forces were targeting a “facility affiliated with Hezbollah.”

An Israeli strike also hit in the vicinity of Lebanon’s only public university, killing a professor and the director of the science faculty at the campus in Hadath, on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

An Israeli strike on a village in southern Lebanon killed nine people, including five children, the Lebanese Health Ministry said, adding that seven others were wounded. An AP photographer who visited the scene found several buildings flattened and widespread destruction, while rescue workers searched through the rubble.

Two other Israeli strikes on separate towns in southern Lebanon killed six more people, the health ministry said.

The U.N. refugee agency said up to 3.2 million people in Iran have been displaced by the ongoing war. It said most have fled from Tehran and other major cities toward the north of the country or rural areas. Around 800,000 people have been internally displaced in Lebanon, prompting fears of a humanitarian crisis.

Ben Mbarek reported from Tunis, Tunisia. El-Deeb reported from Beirut. Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers David Rising in Bangkok; Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands; Natalie Melzer in Mitzpe Hila, Israel; Koral Saeed in Herzliya, Israel; Sally Abou AlJoud and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut; Luena Rodriguez-Feo Vileira and Ben Finley in Washington; and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.