MILAN – Canada has not decided whether injured captain Sidney Crosby will play in the gold medal game at the Olympics against the U.S. on Sunday, coach Jon Cooper said Saturday.
Crosby skated in practice, which was closed to reporters to maintain a shroud of secrecy 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.
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"Obviously we’d love to have him," Cooper said. “He won’t put himself in harm’s way, and he’s not going to put the team in harm’s way.”
Crosby left the quarterfinal game Wednesday night against Czechia with an apparent right knee injury and did not play against Finland on Friday night in the semifinals. Connor McDavid wore the “C” in Crosby's absence and assisted on Nathan MacKinnon's go-ahead goal with 35.2 seconds remaining.
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.
“No. No, it’s too important,” Cooper said. "We don’t 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’t want to do that, either.”
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.
“When it comes to the flag, nobody’s getting in the way,” Cooper said. “If they’re not capable of giving what they think is optimal effort, they don’t want to put the country at harm. They understand what we have here.”
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.
“We’ve done that, and we’ll see,” McDavid said. “He’s been around a lot. Obviously, he’s been extremely positive: still contributing, even though he didn’t play last game, but still being the leader he is.”
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 “looked really good out there on the ice” and hopes the well-respected captain will be good enough to go.
“It’d mean a lot to him and probably us," Suzuki said. “He’s such a big leader, big voice. Everyone looks up to him. It’d be awesome if he could play.”
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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics