MONTREAL -- Montreal center Radek Bonk had his nose broken and his right eye blackened when he was struck by a puck during the Canadiens' 4-2 victory against Tampa Bay Thursday.

Those injuries didn't do much for his prospects of a post-playing career in movies, but also didn't prevent him from being penciled in to play against Sidney Crosby when the Penguins visited the Bell Centre last night.

That figured to be quite a chore under normal circumstances, since Crosby had piled up 10 points in the previous two games. That Bonk had to do it while wearing a cage on his helmet to guard against additional damage added to the challenge.

"Obviously, it's a little distraction," he said. "I haven't played with one since junior."

Bonk downplayed the way the cage would affect his game, but acknowledged that it wouldn't make a difficult task any easier.

"He's pretty fast, so it might be tough to see him, even without the cage," Bonk said. "It's tough to cover him. He's always on the move. With the new rules, you can't really hook him down or slow him down."

Bonk, it should be noted, has the benefit of playing for one of the great defensive forwards in NHL history, Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau. The NHL presumably would frown on Carbonneau's first response when asked how he would try to neutralize Crosby -- "Break his leg before the game" -- but the reality is that Carbonneau usually found a way to contain the game's most productive forwards.

"I always thought my strength was anticipation," he said. "You do your homework, know who you're playing against.

"Everybody has tendencies. Some guys are easy to [defend]. They do the same thing, over and over again. Guys like [Mario] Lemieux and [Wayne] Gretzky and Sidney and those guys, they change, but they still have tendencies. Those are the ones you have to find."

Predictably, Carbonneau declined to elaborate on any tendencies he has detected in Crosby's game, except for one: "Right now, he's scoring a lot."

Christensen back in lineup

Forward Erik Christensen, a healthy scratch for the Penguins' 7-4 victory against the New York Islanders Friday, was back in the lineup last night when winger Nils Ekman missed the game for personal reasons. Christensen had four points in six games before the Penguins' 8-4 win against Philadelphia Wednesday, but no points and a plus-minus rating of minus-2 against the Flyers.

Hometown hoopla

Every Canadiens game is a major event in this town, even moreso when the visiting team features one of the league's dominant players -- a bilingual one, at that -- and a former Montreal coach.

But while Crosby and Michel Therrien were the headliners -- both were taken to areas away from the visitors' locker room for news conferences after the game-day skate -- a number of Penguins have ties to this city and province, which means any game at the Bell Centre is special for them.

"It's just crazy when you come here," said defenseman Alain Nasreddine, a Montreal native. "Not only that. It's people calling you. I think they know two weeks in advance that Pittsburgh is coming to town, with Sid, so you get calls from friends and family. 'Hey, you got tickets? What's Sid like? I can't believe you're there with them.' But it's good."

Letang gets big honor

Penguins prospect Kristopher Letang was named captain of Team Canada for the world junior championships, which will begin Dec. 26 in Sweden. Letang played the first seven games of this season with the Penguins, scoring two goals. He put up nine goals and 16 assists in 16 games with Val d'Or in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League after the Penguins sent him there in late October.

A loud nyet

Reports out of Russia say that country's hockey federation has rejected participation in the transfer agreement the NHL is expected to sign with the International Ice Hockey Federation in February.

The Russians have not signed off on the current transfer agreement, either, which is why there was a legal challenge last month to Evgeni Malkin playing for the Penguins. Many teams in the Russian Super League believe current or future agreements call for inadequate payments when a player they train goes to the NHL, but there is an element of risk in their stance: The NHL is expected to prohibit Russian players from participating in next spring's world championships in Moscow unless Russia accepts the agreement.