Even the grouchiest, most miserable Eeyore of a pessimist could not have imagined this nightmarish October for the Vancouver Canucks.

Quinn Hughes, Travis Dermott and Tucker Poolman injured, sawing the team’s blueline in half? Check. Captain Bo Horvat, on an expiring contract, wondering aloud if the team will ever win again? Check. J.T. Miller, signed to an eight-year, $56 million contract that pays him until he’s 37, calling himself “irrelevant”? Check. Fans throwing jerseys on the ice? Check.

Coach Bruce Boudreau, after Monday’s loss dropped Vancouver to 0-5-2, wondering if the team suffered from a “fear of winning”? Check.

And perhaps most demoralizing of all: team president of hockey ops Jim Rutherford, appearing over the weekend on Hockey Night in Canada After Hours, indicating the team “may very well be in a rebuild.”

The same team that played .649 hockey over the final 57 games of the season after Boudreau took over last year? The same team that brought KHL star Andrei Kuzmenko to North America and just signed Ilya Mikheyev as a UFA on a four-year deal at a $4.75 million AAV? The same team that punted futures to the Arizona Coyotes a year ago to take on six years of Oliver Ekman-Larsson and signed Conor Garland to a five-year extension?

Oh dear. If the Canucks are truly considering a rebuild, reversing course for a roster very obviously not constructed for rebuild mode will prove extremely challenging.

If Vancouver can’t climb back into the Pacific Division race, I can understand the motivation to rebuild, sure. The team’s playoff odds have already shrunk to a nub.