Corey Crawford has been one of the highest-paid players on the Blackhawks since 2014 — and he’ll continue to be one of the highest-paid players on the Blackhawks, presumably, until his current contract expires in 2020.

Despite this, he’s one of the least understood players on the Blackhawks.

Goaltending is an intricate, mysterious art, and Crawford is one of the league’s greatest victims of misunderstanding. He’s often given all the blame in a loss and none of the praise in a win, considered a prop behind the great Duncan Keith by some and a great mystery to others.

In a way, Crawford’s Man of Few Words persona doesn’t help the situation. There’s a disconnect between what the fans want to know and what he tells them. And while few goaltenders give true insight into their own techniques, his silence adds to the fog surrounding what makes him good and what, sometimes, makes him less than good.

Throughout the season, I’ll be attempting to debunk that.

I’ll take a look at a selection of saves during his starts each week, breaking them down to explain why he’s stopping the puck on one shot and allowing it on another.

Since the season hasn’t quite gotten under way yet, I’ll give my introductory lesson using a game — last week’s preseason matchup with the Detroit Red Wings — that was rife with both good and bad examples.

During that game, Crawford made a total of 30 saves, allowing just one goal and posting a .968 save percentage in all situations. He had a lights-out performance, statistically, failing to get scored on while the Blackhawks had their special teams out on the ice and allowing just one even-strength goal on 16 total recorded shots.

Even the most seemingly airtight statistical games, though, can be picked through for flaws, particularly when it comes to goaltending. So here’s a look at both the good and the not-so-great from this preseason win.

Things kicked off pretty early, with a power play less than a minute into the game. Here, Crawford’s made his first saves of the night.

This save is a great example of Crawford very much in his element.

The first thing we notice is that he’s conservative with his movements. That initial shot hits his pads and rebounds off to his left, then quickly gets lost in the traffic of the play.

Crawford stretches out his left pad, but doesn’t overcommit with the rest of his body, remaining mostly weight-bearing on his right side. This gives him a dual attack; he’s left the side of his body closest to the puck free of most of his weight to move and potentially cover more area, while also giving him a good primer position to get an edge on his right skate and push to his left post.

From there, we see Crawford tightly seal the post (a strength in his game that goes largely unheralded) and zone in on the puck, rather than attempting to decipher the play. Notice that he’s working on remaining squared with his body to the puck, even though he’s trying to protect as much of the post as possible in the process.

Even as he’s still setting along the post, his eyes and head are pointed directly at the puck. While there’s plenty of traffic around the play, this stop ultimately becomes routine for Crawford, who has eliminated as much of the noise as possible.

He isn’t given much credit for how well he follows a play in close, but that’s one of the biggest strengths in Crawford’s game. Seeing it in preseason, to boot, bodes well for the team; he’s already moving seamlessly and making conservative, effective movements to get the job done.

Of course, there’s always the downside to the way that Crawford plays. He’s very good at setting for a shot and using his tracking to determine minuscule adjustments until the puck reaches him, and he’s a very save-first goaltender, rather than blocking and reacting.

That style doesn’t work nearly as effectively when he’s being peppered with multiple shots, because Crawford lacks that highly-agile style that fans see in goaltenders like Jonathan Quick. While Crawford sets himself better for his shots, he’s much less likely to then be able to launch himself for a second, third or fourth save, all from different points in the slot; you’ll see less of those highlight-worthy reels from him.

But take a look at his perfect positioning in relation to the oncoming puck. Here’s another save at 4:07 in the first period.

This is much easier for Crawford to make; the shooter doesn’t try to fool him, approaching and taking his chance without any sharp angles or tricks.

Still, the easy saves can be the ones that hurt a goaltender the most in a game. Watch Crawford’s ability to square up, then immediately follow the puck off to his left and reset for a potential new shot.

There isn’t much to break down when it comes to goals allowed by Crawford in this game, as he only allowed one. But his save on David Booth at around 15:10 in the first period, which would go down as one of his two shorthanded stops, is certainly a good example of what he could have done better.

David Booth approaches Crawford on his right side, skating down the side of the ice for a 1-on-1 shorthanded attempt.

As the Blackhawks’ lone skater between the two, Patrick Sharp, attempts to close him off from Crawford’s net, Booth goes around Sharp and shoots on Crawford’s left side from inside the slot.

It’s a fairly head-on shot from Booth’s backhand, and Crawford faces it squarely and releases a quick rebound. Crawford’s lateral movement to get in position for the shot, though, carries over and continues to cause him to drift towards his left post and engage in the seal he was likely looking to execute when Booth changed courses.

(Take a look at where the puck is. This is what they refer to in the industry as “not ideal.”)

Crawford doesn’t follow this puck back to the right with his entire body, as he did in the previous save we took a look at. And maybe that’s because his own teammate managed to scoop it up and carry it behind the net, so he felt no need to expend the extra explosive energy to launch himself back over to the right, but it’s a surprising choice given his general tendency to glue himself to the puck and ignore the noise of his surroundings.

While his own teammates were present to potentially help in a defensive role, and his eyes were still remarkably stuck on the puck, Chase Pearson (79) of the Red Wings was right behind Sharp to potentially assist Booth in the shorthanded effort. Had Pearson managed to get to the puck first, or ended up knocking Sharp off a bit, Crawford’s positioning was suboptimal for that second save.

Since we discussed earlier his less-than-elite ability to overcompensate for a desperation second save, the fact that there wasn’t a goal there is luck more than anything.

Nitpicking his entire preseason appearance would ultimately give a false sense of confidence in how he’s going to play this year (preseason is a notoriously poor indicator of how a goaltender will truly perform) and it would bore you, as the reader, to tears.

But we can take a look at Crawford’s lone goal allowed as well, to truly round things out.

In all fairness, Crawford isn’t given all that much in the way of defensive coverage in front of him.

The belly-slide, “God, I hope this blocks a shot” defensive tactic is as often a hindrance for a goaltender as it is an effective method of blocking a shot. After all, it’s like providing low crease coverage with zero control over the lateral slide, and often with little analysis given for the trajectory of the shot being “blocked.” That’s very much the case here, where Crawford loses a defenseman to the futile shot-block slide as Michael Rasmussen easily skates into the crease.

It’s a positioning lapse, though, as Crawford opts against a flat lateral butterfly seal and instead leans ever so slightly towards his left post for a centering imbalance.

From farther out, it’s a miniscule overcorrection that wouldn’t hurt Crawford. He’d likely be able to center himself in time for a true shot, getting prepped while the shooter winds up and releases.

In that close, though, Crawford’s steady eye on the puck does little to help when he’s left with little pad extension and simply a one-handed attempt at a paddle save while Rasmussen does the Bobby Orr and ruins his shutout.

As the season progresses, it should be interesting to see how both age and a new defensive corps treat Crawford’s game.

He’s got the right skill set for a long career in net. While overly-reactive goaltenders can fall behind quickly as their movements slow and their reflexes dim with age, a goaltender whose game is set on centering to the puck and tracking with razor-sharp precision is more likely to be able to keep up his talents for years beyond his true prime. Just take a look at the NHL’s most conservative talent — while last year wasn’t his best, the New York Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist is a study in longevity without unnecessary movement.

As his almost-goal-against and actual-goal-allowed show, though, Crawford’s game still displays holes, particularly ones that seem to boast no other real explanation other than quick technical lapses.

Nine times out of 10, he does the right thing for a save, and the one time he doesn’t boasts little rhyme or reason. With his best defensive-minded patrolman (Niklas Hjalmarsson) in Arizona, it should be intriguing to see how he handles another year’s workload.

***

Of course, I won’t be only looking at Crawford this year. One of the most intriguing storylines with the Blackhawks this year will be the possible redemption arc of new backup goaltender Anton Forsberg. At 24, Forsberg has just 10 games of NHL experience to date, and they’ve added up to just a .879 collective save percentage in all situations.

Forsberg’s got a very small sample size of somewhat disappointing work under his belt, and he fell down the depth chart in Columbus when Joonas Korpisalo rose up the ranks. Now, he’ll get a chance to try again for that NHL backup position, this time trying to fill two very large skates as he takes over for the departed Scott Darling.

I’ll take a look at Forsberg as well, examining why he’s struggled to date and whether he’s improving. I’ll also potentially get a chance to look at Jean-Francois Berube, Collin Delia and Jeff Glass with the Rockford IceHogs.

For now, though, I hope you learned something new about Crawford. See you after the opening week.

(Top photo: Brian Fluharty/USA TODAY Sports)