Corey Crawford hasn’t played since a 5-0 loss to L.A. earlier this month.
He’s missed the last six games with an upper-body injury, and will miss No. 7 tonight when the ‘Hawks take on the Wild.
There have been no updates on his health, and he hasn’t resumed skating.
Which makes this report, from Chicago Sun-Times sources, fairly ominous:
As for Corey Crawford, no news is bad news. The Hawks goalie and Vezina Trophy candidate who hasn’t played since March 14, still hasn’t skated, and appears unlikely to travel to Winnipeg.
A source said that Crawford is dealing with a head injury, and possibly something similar to the vertigo symptoms that Bryan Bickell was dealing with last spring.
He’s still officially “day to day” with an unspecified upper-body injury.
The Sun Times’ Mark Lazerus appeared on TSN 1040 over the weekend, and addressed the Crawford situation, noting that head coach Joel Quenneville couldn’t guarantee his No. 1 netminder would be back for the playoffs.
“The regular season ends two weeks from today,” Lazerus explained. “So the playoffs start in two-and-a-half weeks. It would be something really serious for him to be out four weeks with what was initially diagnosed as a day-to-day injury.
“Quenneville said he thinks [Crawford] will be ready. He didn’t say he expects, he said he thinks he’ll be ready, but can’t say it with certainty. It just smacks of head injury when you have this kind of nebulous timetable.”
In the midst of a Vezina-worthy campaign, Crawford was also selected as one of Team Canada’s three goalies for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
So, needless to say, any prolonged absence would be a major blow for the ‘Hawks.