Pre-Game News (UPDATE)

FREE
LIVE STREAM of tonight's game
(CLICK HERE)

SIDNEY CROSBY / RYAN WHITNEY
Crosby and Whitney are both out of tonight's lineup. Whitney "left the team for personal reasons." "He has some family matters that he needs to attend to for the next couple of days," interim head coach Dan Bylsma said. "He's gone back home. The plan right now is for him to meet us in Chicago."

Crosby left the optional skate this morning and said that his groin doesn't feel good enough to play. He is listed as "day-to-day."

"Sunday against Washington it was a little sore," he said. "Monday, it was pretty much the same but I was hoping it would go away. There was only so much time to practice with the new coach so I tried to get through that. It was more sore (Tuesday). It just hasn't improved a whole lot."

JANNE PESONEN
With Crosby out of the lineup tonight, the Penguins recalled Pesonen from WB / S.

BACK IN BLUE
I forgot to mention that the Penguins will be wearing their baby blue alternate jerseys against the NY Islanders tonight.

RUSLAN FEDOTENKO / MATT COOKE
Fedotenko and Cooke missed practice on Monday to undergo conditioning evaluations and returned yesterday. They are expected to play tonight against the NY Islanders.

"I have not talked to our trainer about Cooke and Fedotenko," Bylsma said. "They were feeling good going into practice. They looked like they practiced well. Barring a message I don't expect, it looks like they passed today's practice and should be pretty good for (Wednesday)."

KRIS LETANG
After being a healthy scratch for the last three games, Coach Bylsma reported that Letang will return to the Penguins lineup for tonight's game. Bylsma want Letang to reach his potential as a player and decided to keep him a healthy scratch when the team was winning and "didn’t want to shakeup a good thing."

“I was real happy with the way Kris Letang practiced,” Bylsma said after Monday’s practice. “I think he completely knows what we expect and he made an effort to do that in practice and it was duly noted by the staff.”

MARC-ANDRE FLEURY
Bylsma also announced that Fleury will start in goal for the Penguins tonight.

"Marc-Andre will start (Wednesday)," Bylsma said. "He's our No. 1. He's a guy that's going to carry the load for us. We believe in what he can do for us going forward for the rest of the season."