Zeev Buium signed an eight-year, $75.04 million contract with the Vancouver Canucks on Friday. It has an average annual value of $9.38 million and will begin with the 2027-28 season.
“It was pretty easy for me,” Buium said. “When they came with the offer it wasn’t a hard decision to make. Personally, I wanted to be here for eight years, I didn’t want it to be shorter, and I’m really glad. I love the city. I love the fan base. I love where this organization is going, and I want to be a Canuck, I want to be here, and hopefully the end goal is obviously a Stanley Cup, and hopefully bring that back one day, and through all the years just really give the fans and everyone here in Vancouver something to cheer for.”
The 20-year-old defenseman was acquired by the Canucks with forwards Marco Rossi and Liam Ohgren and a first-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft in the trade that sent defenseman Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild on Dec. 12, 2025.
“The moment I got here and got traded here, the second I got to Vancouver, the fans, the people, my teammates, the organization accepted me arms wide open, and have treated me amazing and I just think this place and this market and how passionate the fans are and the people are here, it’s really special,” Buium said. “I think as a hockey player, as an athlete that’s something that you love to play in front of, you love to do, and like I said, I just think that’s something I couldn’t turn away from and a place I chose to be and I want to be.”
He is entering the last of a three-year, entry-level contract he signed with the Wild on April 13, 2025. Buium could have become a restricted free agent after this season.
“It’s something that we felt strongly in Zeev, in his pedigree, he’s a proven winner,” Canucks general manager Ryan Johnson said. “This contract isn’t about Zeev the player today or tomorrow. It’s where we see him in three, four, and five years and so it was something that we felt if both sides could come in agreement and make a commitment to each other, it was something we’d be excited to get done.”
Buium had 12 points (three goals, nine assists) in 45 games for the Canucks last season. A first-round selection (No. 12) by the Wild in the 2024 NHL Draft, he has 26 points (six goals, 20 assists) in 76 games for the Wild and Canucks, and one assist in four Stanley Cup Playoff games.
“We’ve seen his journey over the years, partly last year of not just his play but who he is as a person,” Johnson said. “He brought such an energy and a leadership type quality that you really don’t find in a lot of 20-year-olds, which is astonishing and so, yes, it was a lot about his play and where we see he can go. He’s 20 years old, 21 in December, and understand — and he and I just had a conversation about it — that this is now a journey and we’re going to support him and there’s going to be adversity and there’s going to be ups and downs, but he’s going to make mistakes and he’s going to have stretches but we’re very confident in what he’s going to be as a player.
“But even ultimately, a lot of this commitment is who he is as a person, his ability to impact the dressing room, and his overall desire to win is extremely evident, and so this, yes, we are committing to him but Zeev really, in his own words, wanted to make a commitment to the city, to the province, to the fans. He didn’t want anything other than eight years, so that he could do this and do it properly.”
