Head coach Joel Quenneville said 10 days ago that Crawford was expected to return from an upper-body injury at some point, but apparently it's not quite that cut and dry.
From Lazerus:
Three sources told the Sun-Times that Crawford is dealing with vertigo-like symptoms, for the second time in his career. And there is a growing concern within the organization that Crawford could miss the rest of the season, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on Tuesday.
Crawford has not played since Dec. 23, and was placed on injured reserve shortly after the holiday break, at which point he was ruled out indefinitely.
Prior to being removed from the lineup, Crawford was playing some of the best hockey of his career, posting a record of 16-9-2 with a .929 save percentage. Anton Forsberg and Jeff Glass have been tending the net in his absence, and the Blackhawks currently sit bottom of the Central Division standings.
Crawford missed almost a month at the end of 2015-16 with what was reported to be symptoms of vertigo, but he was able to return for the postseason.
That appeared to be the consensus on Twitter following the NHL's announcement that "Multiplatinum-selling singer/songwriter Kid Rock will headline the entertainment for the 2018 Honda All-Star Game in Tampa."
The NHL going from Nick Jonas and Carly Rae Jensen to Kid Rock for All-Star Game entertainment is like going from, uhh, nope, this is a new bar without proper analogy.
I guess 20 years after the NHL asked him to play the All-Star Game, Kid Rock finally accepted and they felt bad telling him they were no longer interested.
Minorities, people of color and women already feel like the NHL doesn't gaf about them. Having Kid Rock as the All-Star game entertainment just underlies that point.
We've seen NHL logos mashed up with horror characters, and now another graphic artist has created a series imagining what each team's logo might look like as a flag.
John Lenard pulled inspiration from existing city, state, and provincial flags for many of his designs. You can see the full collection and Lenard's explanations here.
As the NHL becomes a league shaped primarily by teenagers and 20-somethings, veteran players remain crucial pieces for any team hoping to make a run at the toughest trophy to win in professional sports.
With the Feb. 26 trade deadline approaching, general managers across the league will look to augment their rosters with the right mix of experience and skill.
Here are four veteran players who can still contribute and could be dealt before the deadline.
Radim Vrbata, Florida Panthers
Vrbata may currently be struggling to fill the back of the net, but the 36-year-old journeyman would still make an excellent addition to any playoff-bound club looking for some scoring depth.
Despite being hindered by illness this season and playing with offensively challenged linemates (Vrbata has been skating with Connor Brickley and Denis Malgin on the Panthers' third line), he still has 13 points in 32 games played.
Those numbers don't exactly jump off the page, but come on: Brickley and Malgin?
Throw Vrbata into the mix with some offensively minded, top-six-caliber forwards and he could prove to be just the type of veteran presence a club is looking for.
Antoine Vermette, Anaheim Ducks
At 35 years young, Vermette still holds value as a responsible two-way player who can win big faceoffs and chip in with timely goals.
The veteran pivot also brings a winning pedigree, as he was dealt to the Chicago Blackhawks at the 2015 deadline and went on to win the Stanley Cup. He registered seven points in 20 games while serving in a key bottom-six role for Chicago.
Vermette is perhaps most attractive to potential trade partners at the faceoff dot, where the experienced centerman owns stellar win-loss numbers. This season for the Ducks, Vermette is winning his draws at an almost 60 percent clip and has a career mark of 56.8.
Anaheim is still in the playoff mix and might not be willing to move Vermette, but expect his skill set to be coveted by quite a few postseason-bound teams.
Johnny Oduya, Ottawa Senators
Another player whose name is seemingly mentioned at every trade deadline, Oduya continues to demonstrate his worth as a cheap, reliable option for GMs in search of some blue-line stability.
Through 37 games for the Senators, Oduya has put up respectable numbers, registering six points and a minus-4 rating while logging just under 17 minutes of ice time per night.
Again, those stats aren't much to write home about, but any team looking to acquire Oduya is interested in his leadership and playoff experience, not his numbers. He won't be winning the Conn Smythe anytime soon, but he does have two Cups and 106 career postseason games to his credit.
Don't be shocked if Oduya is on the move once again.
Thomas Vanek, Vancouver Canucks
Added to Vancouver's roster in the offseason to very little fanfare, Vanek is experiencing something of a renaissance with the Canucks, tallying 13 goals and 19 assists across 45 games.
On pace for his highest point total (58) since notching 68 for the Sabres during the 2013-14 season, Vanek's trade value grows with each passing week.
Obviously, Vanek is benefiting from playing alongside Brock Boeser, one of the best young players in the game, but Vanek himself can still bury the biscuit.
A wicked slapper, nose for the net, and soft hands make him the perfect veteran addition to any group in need of offensive help.
Sweden announced its roster for the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics on Tuesday, and an 18-year-old is the star attraction.
Rasmus Dahlin, a virtual lock to be the No. 1 overall pick in June's NHL draft, was named to the team, just weeks after representing his country and winning silver at the world juniors in Buffalo.
Here's a look at the rest of the roster, which features former NHLers Jhonas Enroth and Viktor Stalberg, among others:
Dahlin's recorded 11 points in 28 games with Frolunda of the Swedish Hockey League this season, and racked up six assists in seven world junior contests.
With two trades made over the last three years, the Islanders pieced together their second line from a pair of deals courtesy of the Oilers.
It began at the 2015 draft, when the Islanders flipped former fourth overall pick Griffin Reinhart to Edmonton - an odd pickup by the Oilers, given the young blue-liner had made little progress since his own draft three years earlier, but seemingly enough for Chiarelli to pay top dollar.
The Oilers parted with two draft choices to acquire Reinhart - first- and second-round picks in 2015. A steep price for sure, and the Islanders went to work.
With the first of the two picks, New York called Barzal's name, a top-scoring center from the WHL who pocketed 57 points in 44 games with the Seattle Thunderbirds in his draft year. Scouts were deterred by Barzal's diminutive size - he now stands 6-feet and nearly 190 pounds - but the Islanders liked what they saw, picking Barzal with the 16th selection, eight slots below his final draft ranking.
And for the Islanders' next trick? General manager Garth Snow attached his team's own third-round pick - the 72nd selection - to the Oilers' second-rounder - pick No. 33 - to move up five slots in the draft order.
That set the table for the Islanders to return to the draft podium for the second time that night, and they wasted little time by adding a Shawinigan Cataractes standout in Beauvillier, who scored a team-leading 42 goals and 94 points in his draft year, good for eighth in QMJHL scoring that season.
As for Reinhart? He played all of 29 games with the Oilers, picking up a single point, before he was set free in last summer's expansion draft. He's now lacing up for the Vegas Golden Knights' minor-league club.
Meanwhile, Barzal and Beauvillier, one rookie and one sophomore, are both producing this season, forming a second-line combo that is proving to be a tactical challenge for opposing teams who are already exerting plenty of effort to try to keep Tavares off of the scoresheet.
(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)
The sort of secondary scoring is what's missing in Edmonton this season.
Despite owning both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, the Oilers seemingly struggle to score - Edmonton's offense sits in the NHL's bottom third.
Take away McDavid and Draisaitl and it gets even uglier, as the Oilers then have only 100 goals on the season, just above two a game, and with only 79 of those tallies coming from the forward corps.
If only that's where the dealing had stopped.
But Snow then revisited the Chiarelli vending machine this offseason, parting with another former top pick who had failed to live up to expectations in Ryan Strome to return Jordan Eberle, a five-time 20-goal scorer.
While the deal gave the Oilers cap relief - which they subsequently spent on extending Kris Russell - the skill side of the equation never favored Edmonton. Only twice previously has Strome scored more than 10 goals. It was an all too familiar scenario from a year earlier, when the Oilers moved Taylor Hall for a middle-pairing defender in Adam Larsson.
The Eberle trade was a bad deal then and has only gotten worse, as he's been a tremendous fit with the Islanders, while Strome is still struggling to meet to his original billing. In all, Eberle has more than doubled Strome's production this season.
There was no better showing of the Islanders' second line than Monday night, when the trio combined for six points to power New York to victory over the Montreal Canadiens. It was a key win for the Islanders, who are fighting for a playoff berth in hockey's most competitive division.
Among Monday's top producers was Barzal, who picked up two goals and added an assist to push his point streak to 10 in his last three outings, as he continues to build a safe cushion on Vancouver Canucks freshman Brock Boeser for top spot in rookie scoring.
And the Oilers? They're 10 points from a playoff position and soon to be back in the all-too-familiar territory of the draft lottery.
Coming off a shootout loss to the rival Boston Bruins on Saturday, Claude Julien's club came out firing Monday against the New York Islanders, finishing the contest with a 56-24 shot advantage.
According to Hockey Reference, 56 is the highest number of shots recorded by Montreal in a single game since an 11-1 win over Pittsburgh on Feb. 24, 1990.
Instead of coming away with the win, however, the Canadiens dropped a 5-4 overtime decision to the Islanders, backed by a career-high 52 saves from Thomas Greiss and secured by a John Tavares goal - his second of the night - in the extra frame.
The 52 saves for Greiss were the second most by a goalie in a game this season. Varlamov made 57 on 11/2/17. #Isles
The Canadiens did pick up a single point, but that won't do when they're 11 back of the Toronto Maple Leafs for third in the Atlantic Division, and now eight back of the Islanders in the race for the Eastern Conference's second wild-card spot.
On the positive side of things, captain Max Pacioretty scored for the fourth time in four games and Jonathan Drouin snapped a 13-game drought.
Next on the schedule is another date with the Bruins, set for Wednesday in Boston.
