Can't afford Bozo

Pass on using draft picks to acquire a rental goalie. Would much rather go after a FA goalie to compete with Bernier.

How are the Rangers supposed to take on Bozak?

Allen’s worth nowhere near a 2nd. Detroit will just sign a free agent

Detroit declines. They'd rather use the 2nd round pick to acquire Alexandar Georgiev from the Rangers.

You do realize that there will be a flood of goalies on the free agent market with little buyers right? Buffalo, Chicago, and Detroit and that's about it for starter's jobs.

Expected goalies on the market that will re-sign with teams or go to Cup contenders:
Braden Holtby (Washington), Robin Lehner (Vegas), Jacob Markstrom (Vancouver), Jaroslav Halak (Boston), Corey Crawford (Chicago) and Anton Khudobin (Dallas).

Career backups that the Wings could target for nothing:
Cam Talbot (Calgary), Thomas Greiss (Islanders) and Aaron Dell (San Jose).

Available in a trade:
Matt Murray or Tristan Jarry, Jake Allen, (Marc-Andre Fleury if Vegas chooses Lehner)

Might be available given they have 1 year left on a contract and might no longer fit the payroll:
Devan Dubnyk, Pekka Rinne

That's a large sellers list with few buyers...that means the market will drive down prices. Add in the fact that St. Louis is desperate to cut payroll to re-sign Pietrangelo and I doubt Allen goes for even a 3rd rounder.

Judging by the complete lack of viable centers in the free agency. Moving Bozak to someone like Columbus would make more sense.

I fully agree that Allen won't fetch a 2nd, but... you do realize that most every goalie you listed as going to the market is also a job opening, right?

Trading Fleury would bring VGK fans down on your throats real fast

Not necessarily, job displacement from younger guys happen all the time. Just going through his post Georgiev is in a three goalie situation now, Lehner with MAF (due to MAF contract), Markstrom with Demko, Khudobin with Bishop, etc.

Where to start. . .

Current teams in the NHL that need a starting goaltender
Ottawa, Minnesota, Detroit, Calgary, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Edmonton (tandem with Koskinen), San Jose (arguably Jones may be bought out of a contract)

So if we exclude Edmonton and San Jose from the list that leaves 6 teams that are in need of a starting goaltender while still ignoring the teams that would get an immediate upgrade for Jake Allen.

A Pittsburgh goalie is going to cost Detroit arguably more then they are going to want to give up. Which would likely include a high first round draft pick.
You're list is 6 potential goalies when there are 6 teams at minimum who are in need of a starting goaltender. The second one goes off the board, it makes it that more costly for the next team. With Allen you get guaranteed cost. Allen outperformed the 6 goaltenders that are about to be FA's you mentioned and he's under 30 with a future. Most of those guys are 34 and have been declining in performance, plus they are most likely to re-sign with their current teams.
Not only does getting Allen make sense, but Detroit has the option to retain part of his salary and flip the trade to say Carolina in exchange for Mrazek or Reimer.

Lastly, St. Louis isn't desperate to move cap. They let Oshie, Backes, Shattenkirk, and may others walk with little to nothing in return. Armstrong isn't going to to sell the farm for Petro.

Kings accept! I love Gunnarsson!

That some young goalies come up to take a job doesn't change that it was a job opening with a departure. And being a back-up or 1B is a job, too. Point is, even with exceptions, most departures also open a roster job.

Even if Allen is an upgrade for Detroit, I still don't think they take the deal because they are going to be patient and are a few years away from a competitive hockey team. The move that makes the most sense to me is trading for Allen in some deal that nets them something of value and then flipping Allen while retaining some of his Salary.

Am I getting the Jake Allen of 2017-18, 2018-19 (the one who lost his starting job to a minor league goalie with one NHL game) one??? My guys are better than him. And I'm not trading a 2nd rd pick for him...

As I said above, there's no way DET gives a 2nd for Allen. My response was about goalies going to market leaving open jobs behind them.

At the same time, there's no way we're paying anyone to take Allen. He has value, should be worth a 3rd or 4th.

The minor league goalie that set the NHL record for playoff wins in rookie season? Or the rookie that was in contention for the Vezina, Calder, and Conn Smyth?

I Agree, I just don't know if Allen gets involved in a 3 way trade involving Detroit. Detroit takes him and eats a portion of his salary to trade him to Philly or some other team for a first rounder. While we get a 3rd in return.

Not true, because like in Washington a drafted guy (Ilya Samsonov) comes up and take the job. For the Rangers--Igor Shesterkin and the Isles--Ilya Sorokin.

Once top starters like say Rinne are now platoon guys with Juuse Saros. If Rinne gets traded does that open a starters job in Nashville--nope--will it even open up a goalie spot or will the team simply call up it's top goalie prospect (Connor Ingram) and let him be the backup?

So guys that will be there soon (which limits term and thus openings on current teams like Nashville above): Sabres (Ukko-pekka Luukkonen), Panthers (Spencer Knight), Stars (Jake Oettinger), Avs (Justus Annunen), Lightning (Hugo Alnefelt), Blue Jackets (Daniil Tarasov), Coyotes (Ivan Prosvetov), or Blues (Joel Hofer) . Then there are the undrafted NCAA free agents like John Lethemon.

There have been relatively few starting (or big named goalies) traded and the market has shrunk considerably:
28 year old Robin Lehner to Vegas for Malcolm Subban, d-man prospect Slava Demin, and a late 2nd
24 year old Robin Lehner for 1st round #21 pick in 2015
Petr Mrazek for a 3rd and 4th
Brooks Orpik’s contract and 26 yr old Philip Grubauer for a late 2nd
25 year old Martin Jones from Boston for a prospect and 2015 1st
34 yr old Mike Smith to Calgary for a 3rd
Eddie Lack for a 3rd and 7th.
Cam Talbot from NYR for three picks (Nos. 57, 79 and 184)
Roberto Luongo for prospect Jacob Markstrom
Ben Bishop as a year end rental for a 4th rounder
Ben Bishop from Ottawa to Tampa for a 4th rounder and 4th liner
23 year old Seymon Varlamov for a 1st and 2nd rounder in 2012

I think you get the idea of what a soon to be 30 year old goalie is worth.

You certainly do not have a complete list of the goalie tradesover this time frame. Halak has been traded twice, Miller was traded, Andersen, Luongo, Elliott all got healthy returns, Hell, Nilsson has been traded five times in the last six years. Etc etc.

Oh, and Hofer is not close to the NHL (like many of those prospects you've listed). Husso is the one up next for the Blues.

He was a career AHL goalie. Now he's all that. When he was called up he had 1 NHL game.

It’s more of an opportunity rather than job opening since professional sports leagues minus NFL have farm teams. Those under contract can be moved up and down and typically cause job attrition for the more expensive vet. I’m not entirely sure if your point considering there will be a surplus of goalies either this offseason or pre-expansion draft due to the rules. We aren’t contending in the near future so Allen isn’t worth too much to us unless as another poster mentioned to facilitate cap retention to a contender.

Ah where to start....

Detroit already turned down a trade for a younger Allen. The Red Wings rejected the Blues’ offer of Allen for Jimmy Howard near the start of the 2018-19 season. (per Red Wings newspaper beat writer)
Ottawa (Marcus Högberg and Anders Nilsson under contract next year but maybe)
Minnesota (Dubnyk & Stalock under contract next year so nope),
Detroit (already agreed)
Calgary (David Rittich so I guess you found 1 other team--wow--where to begin indeed)
Buffalo (already agreed but can't block Ukko-pekka Luukkonen's path)
Philly (already have a starter Carter Hart)
Edmonton (starter Koskinen and with their cap room and free agents they can't afford a starter tandem--but fine you already admitted this)
SJ (starter Jones and no they aren't going to put a cap buyout hit on their books for the next 8 years--but fine you already admitted this)

So I count 1 other and 1 maybe that want a starter (like I said Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago add in your Calgary Flames and throw in the possibility of Ottawa). Now throw out the possibility the Pens, Blues, and Rangers will all be looking to move a goalie. Rangers & Blues because of cap considerations. Pens because of expansion draft. Now add Vancouver because they need cap in a couple years to re-sign Pettersson and Hughes--and if they choose to re-sign Markstrom then Demko is going to have to be moved because both would be expansion draft eligible.

Yes, I am sure I am the only one that thinks the Blues are in serious cap trouble. Say they let their captain of their only Stanley Cup winning team and Norris contender Alex Pietrangelo walk...where does the money to even sign Vince Dunn come from? It's going to cost more than losing Allen and replacing his salary as you need a 2nd pair d-man at least now. What about trading Alexander Steen and his single digit/low teens scoring? Nope, he has a full NTC until Feb 2021. Jaden Schwartz well he only has a partial so 16 teams he can be moved to. But I guess they could move Brayden Schenn.

So yeah the Blues are in serious cap trouble....

Show me a healthy return for a 30 year old backup goalie in the last few years as analytics has overtaken front offices--make sure it is in the year before an expansion draft where teams will be looking at moving players rather than lose them for nothing. Now show me the team looking to make the move was up against the cap and other teams fully knew they had no leverage in a trade and tell me what they got.

The guys listed were grouped into ready now and then a 2nd group in descending order of how close they are (in other words Spencer Knight closer to NHL than Joel Hofer) to show that a goalie seeking a 4-5 year term might not work in some cities plus as these prospects come up the veterans on those teams can be moved.

Setting aside that parts of your framing of the situation are either off or exaggerated (eg, Allen would not be the back-up for DET), Elliott is close to the exact example you asked for, but with even more similarities - 31 yo, Blues rubbing up against the cap, one year on his deal, a year ahead of an expansion draft and coming off a season with comparable rate stats. He returned a 2nd (which became Kyrou) and a conditional 3rd.

Oh did I mention a flat cap where multiple teams were looking to shed salaries.....which makes a difference in leverage too. Guess I just assume people will calculate that into it--unlike your example. Multiple people have said goalie market is flooded you're not going to get a decent return--but you won't give it up....okay fine. Detroit passes and moves on.

Allen would be in a time share as the number 1B guy (or the backup) or did you not see any Wings games last year from Dec onward? Hint it was Jimmy Howard's performance doomed Detroit to the worst record in the NHL. Allen isn't the goalie he once was considered only a few years ago.

Jonathan Bernier
Stats: 46 games, 15-22-3 record, 2.95 GAA, .907 SVS, 1 shutout
Outlook: You can make a strong case for Bernier being the Wings’ MVP this season. He wasn’t overly great in October and November, bringing back visions of last season. But from December on, Bernier has given a Wings’ a chance to win every night he’s been in net. With one more year left on his contract (at $3 million), Bernier could become a trade chip at next season’s deadline