{"id":465764,"date":"2026-02-21T14:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T14:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/465764\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T14:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T14:42:18","slug":"injured-canada-captain-sidney-crosbys-status-uncertain-for-the-olympic-gold-medal-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/465764\/","title":{"rendered":"Injured Canada captain Sidney Crosby’s status uncertain for the Olympic gold medal game"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILAN (AP) \u2014 Canada has not decided whether injured captain Sidney Crosby will play in the gold medal game<\/a> at the Olympics against the U.S.<\/a> on Sunday, coach Jon Cooper said Saturday.<\/p>\n

Crosby skated in practice, which was closed to reporters to maintain a shroud of secrecy<\/a> around the status of the 38-year-old center who is the most decorated player on the team with two Olympic gold medals and three Stanley Cup rings and was a key contributor before getting hurt.<\/p>\n

“Obviously we\u2019d love to have him,” Cooper said. \u201cHe won\u2019t put himself in harm\u2019s way, and he\u2019s not going to put the team in harm\u2019s way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crosby left<\/a> the quarterfinal game Wednesday night against Czechia with an apparent right knee injury and did not play against Finland<\/a> on Friday night in the semifinals. Connor McDavid wore the \u201cC\u201d<\/a> in Crosby’s absence and assisted on Nathan MacKinnon’s go-ahead goal with 35.2 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n

International rules allow teams to dress 13 forwards instead of the 12 permitted in the NHL, but Cooper cast doubt on the possibility of Crosby being in uniform just to fill a limited role.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. No, it\u2019s too important,\u201d Cooper said. “We don\u2019t want to have somebody in there as an inspiration when we could have a player that could be capable of helping. You never know if guys are going to get hurt in the game. He wouldn\u2019t want to do that, either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper pointed to two of his players with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli, who were chosen for the roster but stayed home because they were not healthy enough to be a bigger help than their replacements. Injured defenseman Josh Morrissey has been ruled out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to the flag, nobody\u2019s getting in the way,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cIf they\u2019re not capable of giving what they think is optimal effort, they don\u2019t want to put the country at harm. They understand what we have here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada rallied from a two-goal deficit to beat Finland, motivated in part by giving Crosby a chance to play one more game at what could be his final Olympics. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done that, and we\u2019ll see,\u201d McDavid said. \u201cHe\u2019s been around a lot. Obviously, he\u2019s been extremely positive: still contributing, even though he didn\u2019t play last game, but still being the leader he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Suzuki, who moved into the spot playing between Mitch Marner and Mark Stone, figures to be there again in the final if Crosby is unavailable. Suzuki said Crosby \u201clooked really good out there on the ice\u201d and hopes the well-respected captain will be good enough to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019d mean a lot to him and probably us,” Suzuki said. \u201cHe\u2019s such a big leader, big voice. Everyone looks up to him. It\u2019d be awesome if he could play.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Winter Olympics: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN (AP) \u2014 Canada has not decided whether injured captain Sidney Crosby will play in the gold medal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[11309,11288,11310,11308,1251,5,189,4,540,92,5168,5167],"class_list":{"0":"post-465764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-ap-online-sports-headlines","9":"tag-ap-top-news","10":"tag-ap-top-news-l-twc-regions","11":"tag-ap-top-news-sports","12":"tag-associated-press","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-lightning","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-tampa-bay","17":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","18":"tag-tampabay","19":"tag-tampabaylightning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116109153900175353","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}