Wings may let Howard walk?

Does losing out on Nabokov over shadow a bigger issue in terms of the Wings goaltending situation?
Nicholas J. Cotsonika of Yahoo Sports writes that what may be lost in the Evgeni Nabokov situation for the Wings is that big question, what do the Wings do in goal beyond this season?
Like Cotsonika says in his article, the Wings have benefited for years by spending low at the goalie position and acquiring veterans as short term solutions. Plus Cotsonika also points out that given what Nabokov signed for, the Wings may still benefit from having a talented and deep team when it comes to possibly getting discounts when free agent shopping comes around.
Howard however is something that the Wings haven’t seen in a while. He’s still young (27 on March 26th) and he is good.
Are the Wings prepared to let him walk though, and revert back to their old philosophies in terms of goaltenders? This is all considering too that veteran Chris Osgood will also be a UFA at season’s end.
Howard makes $716,667 this season and is going to get a raise once he becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.
Wings GM Ken Holland also hasn’t spoken much with Howard’s agents…
“We’d like to keep Jimmy,” Holland said. “We’ve had some very brief conversations going a ways back. Ultimately, when a player is an unrestricted free agent, it’s their opportunity to see what their value is on the open market.
“He’s going to be 27 years of age. He’s in the prime of his career. Obviously people have seen what our philosophy has been in building … now, we understand we have to put more into goal than we have. So we’ll see.
“It’s late January. Free agency begins July 1. I’m sure we’ll have conversations before July 1 comes and goes.”
The Wings have a couple of other areas that will have to be addressed in the off-season considering Ericsson, Eaves, Miller and Draper will also be UFA’s at season’s end. This also includes veterans Mike Modano and Ruslan Salei. Captain Nicklas Lidstrom also has a decision to make on whether or not he is going to come back for another year, which it clearly looks like he can do.
Source: Yahoo Sports