Vancouver Canucks defenceman Quinn Hughes is a gametime decision for Monday night’s matchup against the San Jose Sharks, per head coach Rick Tocchet. According to Postmedia’s Ben Kuzma, Tocchet said Hughes is “dealing with something that just popped up.”

According to CanucksArmy’s Irfaan Gaffar, it sounds like Hughes is dealing with a hand issue. Hughes took a maintenance day for yesterday’s practice — as he has multiple times already this season — and was out skating alone with Canucks assistant coach Yogi Svejkovský this morning.

Hughes logged 26:20 of total ice time in the Canucks’ overtime loss to the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night, a game that Hughes was absolutely brilliant in. The Canucks’ captain picked up a goal and two assists, continuing to build on his MVP-calibre 2024-25 season.

Hughes has played big minutes for the Canucks all season long, but the workload on him has increased since Filip Hronek went down with an injury that will keep Hughes’s main D partner out for two months.

Here is a look at Hughes’ game log for the month of December, courtesy of ESPN:

Hughes has undoubtedly been the Canucks’ best and most important player this season. While many of the Canucks’ star players have struggled, Hughes has been a steady force and is the main reason the Canucks are even in a playoff spot at this point in the season. It’s been a disappointing season for just about everyone not named Hughes to this point, so it will be a big test to see how his teammates respond if their leader isn’t in the lineup against San Jose tonight.

The Sharks are one of the league’s bottom feeders, but rookie goaltender Yaroslav Askarov — who starts tonight — has a .928 save percentage through three starts with the Sharks this season. Given how much trouble the Canucks had against an AHL netminder on Saturday against Ottawa, a win tonight against the lowly Sharks feels far from a guarantee, especially if Hughes isn’t in the lineup.

If Hughes is out, it’s expected that Erik Brännström will slot in on the third pair with Vincent Desharnais, while Derek Forbort moves up to play with Noah Juulsen on the second pairing. Carson Soucy and Tyler Myers should round out the team’s top pairing.

According to Brendan Batchelor, Tocchet said that Hughes will “probably want to play,” but that Tocchet would make that decision ahead of gametime. Tocchet also said the injury just happened last game.

Read today’s pregame article by clicking here! Note that tonight’s game is only available on Amazon Prime.