Corey Crawford meets with the media for the first time since injury

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Corey Crawford met with the media Monday for the first time since suffering an upper-body injury that has caused him to miss 20 straight games. 

The Blackhawks placed Crawford, 33, on injured reserve Dec. 27. He last played Dec. 23 against the Devils, getting pulled in the first period after allowing three goals on seven shots.

Crawford told reporters that it felt pretty good to be around the team, but that getting to the point where he plays is still a process. 

"I want to get back playing, but it's a process to get there," Crawford said. "It's never fun watching from the sidelines. That's what we do, we want to play hockey. It's hard not being in the game.

"We're just looking at day-to-day to try and get better to put myself in a position to play."

Entering Monday night's game against the Coyotes, the Blackhawks sit 10 points back of the Western Conference's second wild card position. Despite this fact, Crawford said that no one is thinking of shutting him down for the rest of the 2017-18 season. 

"You never count this team out, we go game-by-game," he said. "I don't think anyone's thinking that.

"We've gone on streaks before and none of us doubt we can go on another streak and fire off a bunch of wins and put ourselves in a position."

As things currently stand, the Blackhawks have a greater chance at picking first in the upcoming NHL Draft (5.4 percent) than making the playoffs (2.5 percent). While they have 27 games left to make a run, they are running out of time to extend their streak of making the playoffs to 10 consecutive seasons.

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