Nicklas Backstrom missed practice on Friday at MedStar Capitals Iceplex and will not play in Saturday’s game against the Vancouver Canucks.

The star center remains out two days after missing his first game of the season Wednesday with an upper-body injury.

Appears Backstrom (upper body, day to day) is not on the ice for Caps’ practice.

— Samantha Pell (@SamanthaJPell) November 22, 2019

Evgeny Kuznetsov replaced Backstrom on the first line. Carl Hagelin and Nic Dowd remained out with injury while Christian Djoos, who was called up from Hershey this morning, skated on a defensive pairing with suspended forward Garnet Hathaway.

Capitals practice lines ahead of game vs Vancouver on Sat:

Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson
Vrana-Eller-Oshie
Panik-Stephenson-Boyd
Malenstyn-Sgarbossa-Leipsic

Kempny-Carlson
Orlov-Gudas
Siegenthaler-Jensen

— Samantha Pell (@SamanthaJPell) November 22, 2019

The Capitals announced Backstrom was injured Wednesday morning. Head coach Todd Reirden was especially evasive on when, where, or how the injury occurred.

Here’s Todd Reirden on Nicklas Backstrom’s injury, which apparently happened during Monday’s game. #Caps pic.twitter.com/vGHPeQrOEm

— Tarik El-Bashir (@Tarik_ElBashir) November 20, 2019

“Just found out after the (Anaheim Ducks) game (on Monday),” Reirden said. “That’ll be day-to-day, upper body.”

When asked if the injury occurred during the Ducks game, Reirden repeated himself.

“We found out about it after the game and we’ll continue to asses that,” Reirden said.

Headline photo: Elizabeth Kong