Now in his second full year with the Vancouver Canucks, Schaefer is a speedy left winger who seems to thrive in the first month of the season, finding a way to jump out of the gate at full speed while many players around the league struggle to hit stride.

In Vancouver's first three games this season, Schaefer has scored twice and added an assist to lead the team with three points. It feels eerily similar -- the ghouls and goblins do come out this month, after all -- to last season's start, when Schaefer scored 12 points in his first 13 games and was named the NHL's rookie of the month.

Schaefer is hoping that October is the only thing about last season that he repeats this time around.

Peter Schaefer needs more than one great month this season.(Allsport)

"It's an 82-game schedule and the big thing is you have to learn is how to maintain a level of consistency," said Schaefer, who picked up only 19 points in the remaining five months of the 1999-2000 campaign, told SportsLine.com. "Everyone likes to get off to a good start, but you have to produce all the way through to really help your team."

That's the goal Schaefer has set for himself this year, and one that that his coach, Marc Crawford, believes, he is better equipped now to achieve.

"I thought he played very well last year," Crawford said. "He had more chances in the second and third month than in the first, but he just got a little snake bit and faltered a little like a lot of young players do. But he learned to handle it and he's stronger and that's why we think he's poised to be more consistent throughout this year."

Crawford said that like all young players, the key to Schaefer's development will be the experience that comes from playing time. The 23-year-old native of Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan should get plenty this year, since the coach is not at all uncomfortable about using him in a variety of situations.

"He has very good puck skills, pretty good awareness and a good shot," Crawford said. "He can play in all aspects of the game for us."

Which is what the scouts said as they rated Schaefer for his draft year in 1995.

A scoring sensation while rising through the minor ranks on the Canadian Prairie - he once tallied 110 goals in a 57-game season at the Bantam level - Schaefer caught the eye of those in the know as a junior when he starred for Brandon in the Western Hockey League.

The Central Scouting Bureau noted that in addition to his talent for putting the puck in the net, he had an innate ability to "create scoring opportunities for teammates" and to make "good plays from the corners and behind the net." Furthermore, the Bureau pointed out that Schaefer was a deceptively-quick skater who had good balance and worked hard.

Overall, he was rated at No. 59, not far off the 66th slot at which he was eventually chosen by Vancouver.

"When they started getting into the sixties, I started to sweat a little bit," Schaefer laughed as he recalled the emotions he felt on draft day. "I was having a big headache waiting for my name to be called so it was a big relief when it happened."

It was an even bigger relief when he got his first chance to wear a Canucks uniform three years later. Vancouver didn't really spell out its plans for his future when they selected him, Schaefer said, sending him back to Brandon without any clear timetable for reaching the NHL.

"The only thing I could do was to work hard, especially on my defense, and keep getting better each year," he said. "I figured if I did that, I could make the team one day."

That day came on November 11, 1998, after Schaefer had two more outstanding junior years and a season of the AHL under his belt. The Canucks recalled him from Syracuse and sent him on the ice for the first time in the NHL on a line centered by Mark Messier.

"It was a pretty emotional moment not only to be playing, but to be out with one of the legends of the game," said Schaefer, who saw action in 25 games for Vancouver that year. "(Messier) has done everything there is to do in hockey and just seeing him and his presence on and off the ice is unbelievable.

"You can learn so much from a guy like that. And that's great, because I have a lot to learn about this game."