Canada captain Crosby leaves in quarters with lower-body injury

Team Canada captain Sidney Crosby left Wednesday’s Olympic men’s quarter-final matchup against Czechia with a lower-body injury and did not return.

Canada head coach Jon Cooper did not have an update on Crosby after the game.

Crosby took a pair of hits along the boards in the second period, with Czechia’s Radko Gudas knocking him to the ice on one of them.

Gudas, who was not penalized on the play, said after the game he was just trying to finish his check and hopes Crosby is okay going forward.

Crosby was slow to get to the Canada bench and went down the tunnel after being assessed, appearing to favour his right leg. He was officially ruled out for the game as the third period began.

Crosby played seven shifts in 4:41 of ice time prior to departing.

Canada trailed Czechia 2-1 at the time of Crosby’s exit and were down 3-2 late in the third but fought back, pulling even on Nick Suzuki’s late equalizer and winning in overtime on Mitch Marner’s nifty backhand.

Cooper said players were determined in the locker room during the second intermission to make sure Wednesday was not Crosby’s final Olympic game.

Canada will play in the men’s semifinals on Friday.