Binnington was injured at 6:45 after he was knocked over by teammate Calle Rosen and Avalanche forward Nazem Kadri, who was skating hard for a rebound. No penalty was assessed on the play.
Binnington initially tried to shake off the injury, but as he was moving from side to side in his crease he appeared to be in pain and skated off the ice.
"I just see a loose puck, really," Kadri said. "I mean, I was kind of just sitting behind him and just tried to poke it with my stick, and I think their defenseman kind of collided with me and pushed me into him. So you know, had that not been the case, I don't think I would have hit him at all. It's a loose puck. I'm just trying to bang it in."
St. Louis led 1-0 at the time before
going on to lose 5-2
. Colorado leads the best-of-7 series 2-1.
RELATED: [Complete Avalanche vs. Blues series coverage]
Ville Husso replaced Binnington and made 19 saves on 23 shots. Husso hadn't played since he was replaced by Binnington for Game 4 of the Western Conference First Round against the Minnesota Wild.
Binnington, who made three saves before leaving the game, entered Game 3 having won four of his five starts this postseason with a 1.75 GAA and .948 save percentage. He made 51 saves in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Avalanche in Game 1, and 30 in Game 2 to help the Blues even the series with a 4-1 win.
"It's always tough," Blues captain Ryan O'Reilly said. "Obviously, 'Binner's' the heart and soul, playing unbelievable, but I think it kind of took the momentum away and took us a little too long to kind of get it back going again. Things like that happened. We're a deep team, and we could have done a better job of getting the momentum back and adjusting."
