Blues trade Jake Allen to Canadiens for draft picks

The Blues have traded goaltender Jake Allen and a draft pick to the Montreal Canadiens.

In return, the Blues will receive two draft picks previously acquired by the Blues — a third-rounder and a seventh-rounder (both 2020 picks). They will send their seventh-round pick in the 2022 draft to Montreal.

“I want to personally thank Jake for his dedication to the St. Louis Blues organization during his entire time as a Blue,” said Doug Armstrong, the team’s president of hockey operations. “He has always been a top-tier professional who has done everything we have asked of him.”

The Blues selected Allen in the second round of the 2008 draft. He made his first NHL appearance in a cameo in the 2012 playoffs and spent much of the next three seasons in the minors before sharing the net with Brian Elliott in 2014-15 and 2015-16. The Blues traded Elliott to Calgary in June 2016, opening the door for Allen as the starting goalie, a role he held before being supplanted by rookie Jordan Binnington in 2019.

Allen was Binnington’s backup on St. Louis’ trek to the 2019 Stanley Cup championship and much of the pandemic-reconfigured 2019-20 season, but when he did play, he played well. Allen was 12-6-3 with a 2.15 goals-against average and .927 save percentage in the regular season and 2-1-1 with a 1.89 gaa and .935 save percentage in the playoffs, when he was the winning goalie in the Blues’ only two postseason wins, both over Vancouver in the first round.