Crawford still not skating, Could Darling handle the start of playoffs?

[yave1964]

Joel Quenneville seems unconcerned about Corey Crawford being out of the lineup with less than two weeks to go in the regular season. Crawford is still not skating having been out since early March with an upper body injury.

  An aside.

 Is anyone else sick of the whole 'UBI' or LBI' vagaries? I get it that you don't want to say exactly what happened to a player out of fear of an opponent targeting that area on said player upon their return. But it has, IMHO gotten out of hand. If a player were to be decapitated in a car accident all the team would announce is that said player is going to be out for an indeterminate amount of time with an upper body injury.

  This rant brought to you by a disgruntled Wings fan. Now back to your regularly scheduled write up on the Hawks.

  Anyway, Crawford has long been a player whom I consider among the most overrated in the game, his equipment that he wears resembles the stay puff marshmallow man and I have often commented that Seabrook and Keith push him out to the net and then wheel him back to the locker room between periods because he cannot possibly move in all of that gear. But like Osgood for the Wings, he has won a couple of cups because of the team around him and his numbers are solid.

  Scott Darling has been the backup for the Hawks who dealt Annti Rantta to the Rangers in the offseason. Darling was a career minor leaguer who stumbled into an NHL job last year because of injuries and has been respectable, he is not a kid, already 27 this year he is what he is, but the team seems confident that just like with Crawford, a very average goalie at best surrounded by a great supporting cast, if they have to start the postseason with Darling in the mix in net they can still win while Crawford gets his health back.

  I do not think so. Like I said, I believe Crawford to be an average tender on a great team ala Osgood, but I see Darling as two steps below, a career AHLer who somehow got a job in the bigs. I think that on his best day of his career he is an NHL backup, to expect him to captain the Hawks in a first round series against either the high powered Stars or the solid everywhere Blues is kind of like handing the keys to the Porsche to a sixteen year old boy.

  Can he hold the fort together while Crawford is out during the regular season? Sure, why not? They are playing mediocre hockey without Crawford and hearing footsteps from the Predators but will likely hold them off and maintain a top three spot in the division. But if Crawford is not back at or near one hundred percent by the start of the postseason, tee time will come early in Chicago.

 

[Podein25]

9 minutes ago, yave1964 said:

handing the keys to the Porsche to a sixteen year old boy

 

 Please, when we Flyer fans see or hear the word Porsche we reach for the anti-depressants.

 

13 minutes ago, yave1964 said:

But if Crawford is not back at or near one hundred percent by the start of the postseason, tee time will come early in Chicago.

 

They could always call up Michael Leighton. When Flyer fans see of hear that name we reach for our guns...

[hf101]

Crawford is apparently dealing with a concussion with possible vertigo - type issues like Bickel had last year.  They are currently seated in 3rd in the central division, but only 4 points ahead of Nashville which probably wouldn't be much of an issue except that the Hawks are 3-5-2 in their last 10.  I don't think that is a goalie issue here, but more of a team effort play 60 minutes type of thing.  

 

I'm not losing any sleep over their lack of vigor though, but right now I wouldn't mind if the Wild were to face them in the first round, but that probably isn't going to happen. 

[Podein25]

4 hours ago, hf101 said:

vertigo

 

Oh great, now you go and bring up Jeff F*****g Hacket!

 

So, to recap: we've got Leighton and Hackett in a Porsche 930 Turbo, driving too fast around Somerdale, New Jersey! 

 

Sorry....