The rematch today between the Penguins and Canadiens in Montreal might have lost a little of its luster when Colby Armstrong did not make the trip north.

The Penguins' winger was at the center of some hard feelings after his team's 5-4, shootout win against Montreal Thursday night, but he missed the 2-0 win against Washington yesterday afternoon and is listed as day-to-day with a sprained knee.

It's not known if Armstrong was injured when Montreal defenseman Sheldon Souray went after him after the hit on Saku Koivu and ended up on top of Armstrong punching him.

"We're not quite sure," Penguins coach Michel Therrien said of the circumstances that produced the injury. "He doesn't know. He finished the game. His knee was swollen."

After their 4-2 loss against the New York Islanders yesterday at Bell Centre, the Canadiens expressed no displeasure that Armstrong won't play today.

"Not at all," Souray said. "We're looking to win the game. If Mario Lemieux comes back and puts on the skates [today], we have to approach it the same way. Things aren't personal right now. It's not like we're looking at any single player. What we're trying to do here is get our team focused on the teams we're playing each night."

Montreal winger Mike Johnson predicted that things will have blown over.

"It certainly was an intense game, but very, very rarely does an incident like that carry over to the next game, even when we're playing them three days later," Johnson said.

"You've seen a ton of times in the last several years where there's a big incident, a big buildup and, invariably, the next game doesn't have that kind of play in it."

A confession, sort of

Montreal rookie Maxim Lapierre confessed to butt-ending Sidney Crosby a split-second after the opening faceoff Thursday.

Probably.

Sort of.

"My goal was just to finish my check on him," Lapierre said. "Maybe my stick touched him a little, but it wasn't on purpose."

Slap shots

It seemed logical that backup Jocelyn Thibault might start in goal for the Penguins today -- until Marc-Andre Fleury got his second shutout in a week yesterday. Asked if he would stick with the hot goaltender, coach Michel Therrien smiled broadly. "What do you think?" he said. ... The standing-room crowd of 17,132 gave the Penguins their 10th sellout in their past 11 home games and their 17th full house in 27 games this season at Mellon Arena. ... Crosby had his six-game assists streak and eight-game points streak halted. Defenseman Ryan Whitney had a nine-game points streak stopped. ... The Penguins' other scratch besides Armstrong was defenseman Noah Welch, who was recalled Friday from Wilkes-Barre. ... Washington's scratches were goaltender Brent Johnson, defenseman Lawrence Nycholat and former Penguins forwards Matt Bradley and Kris Beech.