Crosby, Cooke out tonight; Penguins to dress seven defensemen - 01-06-10

The Penguins will be without leading scorer and captain Sidney Crosby for tonight's game in Montreal due to a "upper-body" injury. Forward Matt Cooke will also miss the game in order to attend to personal matters.

According to coach Dan Bylsma, Crosby returned to Pittsburgh to be evaluated by doctors. According to Bylsma, Crosby suffered the injury last night against the Lightning.

As a result, Arron Asham will re-join the lineup after being a healthy scratch last night. Additionally, the Penguins will dress seven defensemen. Ben Lovejoy and Deryk Engelland have alternated most of the season as the sixth defeseman.

According to the Web site, Crosby's spot as center on the top line will be taken up by Mark Letestu. The second line of Tyler Kennedy, Jordan Staal and Evgeni Malkin will remain intact. The bottom two lines will be construted of some combination involving Asham, Mike Rupp, Craig Adams, Maxime Talbot and Chris Conner.

Additionally, backup Brent Johnson was confirmed as the team's starter in net tonight.

Crosby is the league's leading scorer with 66 points in 41 games. This will be the first game he has missed this season.

Cooke has scored 19 points in 41 games this season. This will be his first missed game of the season as well.

For the Canadiens, the team revealed defenseman Josh Gorges, who played a significant role in the club's defeat of the Penguins in last season's playoffs, will miss the rest of the season due to a knee injury.

(Photo: Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press)