Chicago Blackhawks’ Corey Crawford’s Health A Mysterious Case

After not providing any status reports on injured goaltender Corey Crawford for multiple weeks, the Chicago Blackhawks came out with news he’s suffering from vertigo. This is not being accepted so readily by everyone.

The Chicago Blackhawks have released a statement that Corey Crawford could miss the rest of the season because of “vertigo.” This is the first time in three week since Crawford’s latest injury that the Blackhawks have released a statement about his health.

The Chicago Sun-Times’ Mark Lazerus believes the Hawks statements are true.

While others do not share Lazerus’s optimism toward the subject.

It is also curious that the ‘Hawks have not mentioned anything before Tuesday. While NHL teams are not very forthcoming on players’ injuries at all times, the ‘Hawks usually give us some idea about Crawford because he is the goalie and an important player.

When Crawford hurt his foot at a concert in 2013, the Blackhawks stated what happened. In 2016 when Crawford had an appendectomy, the ‘Hawks told us. It is rather curious that the ‘Hawks waited three weeks to tell us anything.

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Other media outlets have theories on the matter. The Rink speculated that the organization has wanted to trade Crawford since 2015 due to some underlying issues behind the scenes.

My theory

The Hawks were not prepared for this story and panicked. They released the vertigo story as a smoke screen to distract us from the real issue.  I, however, do not know what the real issue is.  If you log onto to Twitter and look up Crawford’s injury, you already see the timeline has been overlooked.

People are going to be talking about the loss of Crawford for the rest of the season instead of the fact that the ‘Hawks waited three weeks to release any type of information.

People are already speculating on potential short-term replacements for the Hawks. Names being tossed around are Petr Mrazek, Antti Raanta and Robin Lehner.

Next: Blackhawks' Crawford May Not Return This Season

I personally think Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman is going to stick with Jeff Glass and Anton Forsberg going forward. Bowman is in the midst of retool/rebuild, and a higher draft pick would help the process along. Could Bowman and the ‘Hawks try to lose games on purpose? I doubt that is the case, but that theory is plausible.

It will be interesting to see the rhetoric on Crawford going forward.