What a weekend? The Toronto Blue Jays, the BC Lions, the Vancouver Whitecaps, Hallowe’en. If you were fortunate, any or all of those distractions took your mind away from a listless Vancouver Canucks effort in Minnesota on Saturday night. Same for Drew O’Connor.

The Blue Jays could have used some of his finish on Saturday night. Otherwise, the Canucks left a lot to be desired against the Minnesota Wild. But they have moved on, and so shall we.

We have questions to answer. Plenty of questions about a hockey team doing its best to tread water. The best news possible is that Captain Quinn Hughes returns tonight after a four-game absence. Canucks hockey is simply more enjoyable when Hughes is in the lineup. We’ll see if his presence can propel the club to finish its three-game road trip with a win in Nashville.

As we all await the drop of the puck, here is this week’s Monday Mailbag to help you pass some of the time.

I sort of liken this to asking someone to do a restaurant review, only to tell them that half the menu items are not available. Sure, you could examine the location, the decor and the friendliness of the serving staff, but it’s nearly impossible to render any true evaluation on the chef and their culinary skills if you’re only ordering off the kid’s menu. Chicken strips for everyone!

Adam Foote revealed some of his cards through training camp and the preseason about the way he’d like his team to play in terms of forechecking and getting defencemen up into the rush. He certainly has expectations of what he wants players to do, regardless of who is in uniform on any given night. However, when eight guys are out of the lineup with injuries at the same time, the system becomes one of survival in a hurry. Right now, the system looks to be hoping Thatcher Demko puts on a nightly show, Kiefer Sherwood continues to shoot 35% and a few others chip in now and again. So I think it’s impossible to grade the new coaching staff on its systems at this stage. Give it a little bit more time to see what Chef Foote is cooking up when he has a full pantry to work with.

Following up on the previous question, I think a 6-7 record, given the onerous travel, the ridiculous injuries, and the underwhelming production of many top-of-the-lineup players, is actually commendable on some level. However, it’s also important to note the Canucks haven’t faced many of the league’s best teams yet – and that gauntlet is coming at them in a hurry starting next weekend.

Three regulation wins in 13 games is a little concerning, yet the team is also 3-0 in games settled beyond regulation, and that’s progress given how many bonus points it left on the table last season. Ultimately, what I think the first 13 games have shown is that the Canucks can maintain a competent competitive level — or floor — most nights. What I’m still not sure of is this group’s ceiling even when healthy. So treading water early is fine for a while yet. But does this group have a couple of 8-2 stretches in it at some point later in the season?

The Canucks will need a few of those types of runs to make up the ground necessary to rise above the playoff bar. I’m just not confident predicting that this group will snag 16 of 20 points through any three week segment of the schedule. Or let’s put it another way, almost everything imaginable would have to go right for the Canucks to get on that kind of hot streak. And right now, it’s hard to see absolutely everything falling this team’s way.

In the absence of Quinn Hughes, MP29 has been asked to shoulder a heavier-than-usual workload and, for the most part, has held his head above water. He logged a career-high 27:21 against the Edmonton Oilers last weekend. The Canucks have outscored opponents 6-5 in his 5-on-5 minutes.

Like most on the team, his underlying numbers as a whole aren’t flattering (45.4% CF/45.7% xGF), but he’s also been asked to take on difficult matchups on many nights – especially with the captain out recently. I didn’t love his defending on the first goal in Minnesota on Saturday, and there have been a few other questionable moments along the way. But that happens to just about everyone over the course of an 82-game season.

Pettersson stuck up for his teammate after Conor Garland was rocked by Sam Carrick last Tuesday. He’s already taken seven minor penalties in 13 games after being whistled for 10 in the 31 games he played after being acquired last season. So he needs to make better decisions and find ways to stay out of the penalty box – especially right now when penalty killing has been a concern for the Canucks.

Overall, he’s given the team what it expected. He’s a consummate pro who brings some grit to the defensive side of the game. He’s not flashy, nor is he expected to be. So I think he’s been a C+ kind of player so far.

Dead horse, elephant in the room, call it what you want. With the occasional exception, the first 13 games of this season have looked far too much like the past 18 months for the team’s highest-paid player. A goal here, a strong defensive play there, but otherwise it has been an underwhelming start to the season for EP40. It just has been.

Sure, with very little behind him in the lineup, opponents are able to throw their best defensive options at him. But all the top players in the league see their share of shutdown matchups. And most of them find a way to prevail. For all the talk of added weight, a strong summer and renewed dedication to his craft, Pettersson is on pace for a 19-goal and 50-point season. The numbers don’t lie. He has just three points in eight road games so far. Drew O’Connor has four on this road trip alone. So how do you ‘solve’ this if you’re the Canucks? It’s a question that has unfortunately been asked for far too long now.

Much of the solution is on the player himself. He simply needs to find a way to be more impactful. The team could certainly help by acquiring more talent, especially to support him down the middle. And getting healthy bodies back should help everyone, including the team’s top centre. But the days of 102-point Elias Pettersson are getting further and further in the rear-view mirror as time marches along. And it’s feeling less and less likely that the Canucks will see that player again.

If by ‘for real’ you mean whether the Seattle Kraken is the third-best team in the Pacific Division? Yeah, maybe. But perhaps that says more about the division than it does about a 5-2-4 team with a negative goal differential this season. Those in the Kraken camp say new head coach Lane Lambert has been a much-needed breath of fresh air behind the bench.

The Kraken are 3-0-2 at home and are doing their best to make Climate Pledge Arena a difficult place for visitors. They’re holding their own without Jared McCann, Kaapo Kakko and had to play four games without Brandon Montour, who stepped aside for a family matter.

The Kraken have amassed 14 points in 11 games, but are 28th in the NHL on the penalty kill (67.9%), 31st in the league in faceoffs (44.3%), and they have one player with more than eight points (Jaden Schwartz has 10). So let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves anointing the Kraken as anything but a flawed group like so many others in a weak Pacific Division so far. Are they a playoff contender? Perhaps. But they still have a long way to go to prove it.

It seems there are a lot of people in the ‘just pay the guy’ camp, and I get it. Kiefer Sherwood has earned a healthy raise and will get paid. It’s just a question of how much, for how long and by whom?

The issue in my eyes is how many forwards does this team want under contract well into their 30s when the group as a whole has underperformed? To be clear, Sherwood has not underperformed. But the Canucks already have Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, Jake DeBrusk and Conor Garland locked up to long-term deals that will take all of them well into their 30s. And you may have noticed that core group of forwards hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. So, how prudent is it to just keep on keeping on with all of those guys together? Yes, the cap is rising. And yes, the Canucks can use every bit of the hustle, desire and enthusiasm Sherwood brings to the rink on a nightly basis. The team has a bunch of veterans, so that part of the argument doesn’t really sway me.

A ruthlessly efficient organization can’t just hand out contracts to everyone. Difficult decisions have to be made. And I think the Canucks need to be realistic about where they are this season and where they’re headed in the short and longer term to figure out whether keeping Kiefer Sherwood is in their best interest or if they should sell sky high on a player any team headed to the playoffs would be foolish not to pay a significant price to acquire.