MILAN — Sidney Crosby hasn’t been ruled out of the gold medal game, but for the second year in a row, Josh Morrissey will miss the big Canada-USA matchup with an upper-body injury.

Team Canada head coach Jon Cooper said after practice Saturday that Morrissey was out — a big loss, as Morrissey is the No. 2 defenseman on the team. Morrissey was injured in the Olympic opener and tried to ramp it up in practice over the past week to come back but he couldn’t get there.

“We want Josh in this game, he helps us with puck moving and everything he does, but in the end if you’re not physically able to do it …” Cooper said. “The one selfless thing about this team, and the way I’ve watched these players — and it goes back to Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli (injured players replaced before the Olympics) — when it comes to the flag, no one is getting in the way of it. If they’re incapable of giving what they think is optimal effort, they don’t want to put the country in harm, they understand what we have here.

“But Josh, in the end, he just wouldn’t be able to perform. … So we had to make a decision,” added Cooper.

Which was crushing news for the Winnipeg Jets defenseman, especially after also missing the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game in Boston last year with an illness.

“Yeah, that’s a tough one. This is twice in a year now that we’ve had the same conversation, and I feel for him because he’s just an all-world kid and a hell of a hockey player,” Cooper said.

As for Crosby, who missed Friday’s semifinal win over Finland, Cooper said he would meet with Canada’s superstar leader Saturday night and see where things were. Crosby did skate with his teammates Saturday in what was a closed practice to media.

“We’ll see. I watched him skate today,” Cooper said. “I haven’t spoken to him yet. We’re going to meet tonight and have a determination of what’s going to happen tomorrow. He won’t put himself in harm’s way. He’s not going to put the team in harm’s way.

“Obviously we’d love to have him, but that determination will be made tonight.”

Cooper ruled out dressing Crosby as the 13th forward just to have him on the bench to cheer on his teammates.

“No, it’s too important. We don’t want to have someone in there as an inspiration when we could have a player in there capable of helping,” Cooper said. “You never know if guys are going to get hurt in a game. And he wouldn’t want to do that either.”