The Vancouver Canucks and defenceman Zeev Buium have come to terms on an 8 year, $75.04M contract extension which will carry an average annual value of $9.38M per season.
Buium was part of a massive haul received from Minnesota alongside Marco Rossi and Liam Ohgren in exchange for Quinn Hughes back in 2025. The 20 year old was set to begin the final season of his 3 year, entry level contract this year and would have become a restricted free agent at the conclusion of the 2026-27 NHL campaign.
“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 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 continued. “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.”
The San Diego native posted 26 points (6G, 20A) across 76 games split between the Wild and Canucks last season. Prior to that, Buium had a standout career at the University of Denver where he averaged better than a point per game in the NCHC throughout his two years at the school. A former USNDTP graduate, the 6′ blue liner was originally drafted 12th overall by the Wild in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft.
“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.”
“We’ve seen his journey over the years, partly last year of not just his play but who he is as a person,” Johnson continued. “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.”
Buium and the rest of the Canucks will officially kick off their training camp on September 17th. From there, they’ll have preseason games against the Kraken (x2), Flames, and Oilers before starting their 2026-27 regular season on September 29th.
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