Breaking: Two Canucks leave practice on Sunday.

The Vancouver Canucks have been a little snake bitten this season and there may be some early indications that two more of their players are not 100% at this time. 

On Sunday TSN's Jeff Paterson was covering the Canucks' practice and early on everything appeared to be business as usual. Injured players like veteran defenseman Chris Tanev remained out of the line up but there were no additional causalities to report on the Canucks line up, that is until after practice started.

First it was veteran forward Antoine Roussel who reportedly spent a long time having a discussion with a member of the Vancouver Canucks' training staff on the bench before eventually leaving practice after just 20 minutes. It is not clear at this time what may have been ailing Roussel but his early departure surely can not be a good sign for the Canucks. Unfortunately for the Canucks Roussel was not the only player that would leave practice early on this day.

Following the departure of Roussel it was Canucks goaltender Jacob Markstrom who appeared to be the worse for wear several minutes later. According to Paterson Markstrom spent several minutes sitting on the Canucks bench before eventually retreating back to the Canucks locker room himself. Like Roussel it is not clear what happened to Markstrom at this time, but it also can not be a good sign to have your goaltender making an early departure from practice. 

The Canucks have already been riddled by injuries this season and they can ill afford to lose either Roussel or Markstrom, much less both of them. As I mentioned Tanev is already sidelined and there have been recent injuries to players like Brock Boeser, Alex Edler, Brandon Sutter and Sven Baertschi that have taken a heavy toll on the Vancouver Canucks and the players who remain healthy in the line up. That has been reflected in their play on the ice with a significant losing streak bringing them to 4 - 4 - 2 in their last 10 games and dropping them behind the Calgary Flames in the Pacific Division. 

If any additional details become available regarding the status of Roussel or Markstrom we will bring them to you in short order.

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