MILAN \u2014 Sidney Crosby hasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
Team Canada head coach Jon Cooper said after practice Saturday that Morrissey was out \u2014 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\u2019t get there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want Josh in this game, he helps us with puck moving and everything he does, but in the end if you\u2019re not physically able to do it \u2026\u201d Cooper said. \u201cThe one selfless thing about this team, and the way I\u2019ve watched these players \u2014 and it goes back to Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli (injured players replaced before the Olympics) \u2014 when it comes to the flag, no one is getting in the way of it. If they\u2019re incapable of giving what they think is optimal effort, they don\u2019t want to put the country in harm, they understand what we have here.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Josh, in the end, he just wouldn\u2019t be able to perform. \u2026 So we had to make a decision,\u201d added Cooper.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, that\u2019s a tough one. This is twice in a year now that we\u2019ve had the same conversation, and I feel for him because he\u2019s just an all-world kid and a hell of a hockey player,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n
As for Crosby, who missed Friday\u2019s semifinal win over Finland, Cooper said he would meet with Canada\u2019s superstar leader Saturday night and see where things were. Crosby did skate with his teammates Saturday in what was a closed practice to media.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see. I watched him skate today,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cI haven\u2019t spoken to him yet. We\u2019re going to meet tonight and have a determination of what\u2019s going to happen tomorrow. He won\u2019t put himself in harm\u2019s way. He\u2019s not going to put the team in harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously we\u2019d love to have him, but that determination will be made tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooper ruled out dressing Crosby as the 13th forward just to have him on the bench to cheer on his teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it\u2019s too important. We don\u2019t want to have someone in there as an inspiration when we could have a player in there capable of helping,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cYou never know if guys are going to get hurt in a game. And he wouldn\u2019t want to do that either.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Sidney Crosby hasn\u2019t been ruled out of the gold medal game, but for the second year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5121],"tags":[5,78,54125,4,2602,100,77,18,5288],"class_list":{"0":"post-466632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-winnipeg-jets","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-jets","10":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-olympics","13":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","14":"tag-winnipeg","15":"tag-winnipeg-jets","16":"tag-winnipegjets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116113087093197984","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466632","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=466632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}