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Hawks’ Khabibulin goes on IR

The Blackhawks placed goalie Nikolai Khabibulin on injured reserve Sunday with a lower-body injury suffered in the first period of Saturday’s blowout loss at Nashville.

“He could be out a bit,” Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said again Sunday.

To take Khabibulin’s roster spot, the Hawks recalled Antti Raanta from Rockford.

Without Khabibulin, it meant Corey Crawford would start against San Jose, making it 19 appearances in the Hawks’ 21 games.

The 24-year-old Raanta had a 7-5-0 record for the IceHogs with a 2.83 goals-against average and a .914 save percentage in 14 appearances.

Raanta, who shares fourth in the AHL in wins, posted 4 straight from Oct. 19-27.

“I think he’s had some good games (in Rockford),” Quenneville said. “I’m sure he’s going to be excited about this chance. We’ll see him in practice as well. It’ll be an exciting time for him. Looking forward to seeing him play.”

Quenneville said Raanta would play on the upcoming circus road trip that starts Tuesday at Colorado.

The Hawks don’t play back-to-back games until the last two games of the trip, Nov. 29-30 at Dallas and Phoenix.

Raanta was signed last summer as a free agent after a strong career in Finland.

“Right from the outset we had a pretty good feeling about Raanta,” Quenneville said. “We were fortunate to get him with the number of teams looking at him. Now it’s just the opportunity.”

Hopeful on Hossa:

Marian Hossa missed his second straight game Sunday with a lower-body injury, but Joel Quenneville is hopeful the star right wing can play Tuesday at Colorado.

“We’ve got a seven-game trip,” Quenneville said. “We expect him to play on the trip. I don’t want to say how many games he’s going to play, but he’s going to play some games.”

Working overtime:

Corey Crawford has had a bit more of a workload than the Hawks were shooting for, but because of Nikolai Khabibulin’s poor play and now injury, it’s the reality of the situation.

“There’s no fatigue,” Crawford said.

“We’ve had a lot of time between games here,” Joel Quenneville said. “The weekend back-to-back games with three days off in between have been OK.

“A couple starts (when he came on in relief of Khabibulin), that would have been 16 and four, and that might have been not bad. Four to one, that would have been the ratio.”

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