I have a hard time seeing a deal work out here. The Blues would have to be extremely desperate to compete this year. They would have to convince Detroit to throw in the towel right now and move Howard who is the glue keeping everything together. Detroit would also have to heavily retain and/or take on a cap dump. If the dump is Allen, Detroit would need a very good reason to take on that contract. Even if the Blues manage to get Howard, their odds of making the playoffs are not good and worst case scenario they improve enough to lose their 1st round pick, but not enough to make the playoffs. I don’t see any reason why the Blues would be so desperate this year. It would have to be an I’m going to lose my job sort of deal from Armstrong.