Crawford: Playing time paramount in talks with Blackhawks
Corey Crawford is interested in returning to the Chicago Blackhawks next season, but he wants to be sure he'll get the bulk of the time in the crease.
"I would like to be back," the veteran goaltender said Tuesday. "I think we still have a lot of great pieces on this team, and to win another Stanley Cup in Chicago would be unbelievable, so that's the No. 1 goal."
Crawford, a pending unrestricted free agent, plans to sit down with Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman to discuss his future this week, according to NHL.com's Tracey Myers.
"Going into the meeting, that's the main thing, to win a championship, to play, to be, obviously, the main guy, and play a lot," Crawford said.
The 35-year-old added that it's difficult to say what his mindset is heading into free agency, considering he and the Blackhawks were only eliminated last week. However, he reiterated that he wants to stay as long as he's given a heavy workload.
"Definitely, I'm leaning toward staying in Chicago and, like I said, I want to win another championship and I want to play a ton," Crawford said. "I don't want to play half the games and sit on the bench for stretches at a time. I think my value is just not as good doing that.
"I'm way more valuable playing games and playing consistently, so, it really depends on how much I'm going to be used. Salary, that can be discussed. That is definitely something that is not as important at this time."
Crawford split starts with Robin Lehner before the Blackhawks dealt Lehner to the Vegas Golden Knights at the 2019-20 trade deadline. Crawford went 16-20-3 with a .917 save percentage and 9.01 goals saved above average in 40 regular-season games this season before starting in all nine of Chicago's postseason contests.
Lehner played 33 games for the Blackhawks before the trade, going 16-10-5 with a .918 save percentage and a 10.17 GSAA.
Crawford has spent his entire 13-year career with Chicago, backstopping the club to Stanley Cup championships in 2013 and 2015.