VANCOUVER — For those prone to intense bouts of sticker shock, stop following the transaction tickers for professional sports. Your cardiologist (and therapist) will thank you.
In a National Hockey League in which Cale Makar just re-signed for $20.4-million-US per season and a 21-year-old centre named Leo Carlsson recently boxed his team into an $18-million average salary, does it make sense that the Vancouver Canucks on Friday committed $75-million over eight years to second-year defenceman Zeev Buium?
Absolutely. Buium may turn out to be more than half as good as Makar.
Truly, the most surprising number involving Buium, the 20-year-old San Diegan who was drafted 12th by the Minnesota Wild just two years ago, is not the $9.38-million average salary he will start drawing in the 2027-28 season, but the 76 NHL games he has played so far as a promising but far-from-proven player.
Under new general manager Ryan Johnson and co-presidents Henrik and Daniel Sedin, the Canucks have placed a massive, calculated bet on Buium, who was the centrepiece in the haul of assets Vancouver received last December for trading superstar defenceman Quinn Hughes to Minnesota.
Fun fact: The Canucks were able to re-sign Buium before the Wild re-sign (or not) Hughes.
Fun fact No. 2: Unlike Hughes, Buium is unconcerned about trying to play in the NHL with his brother, Shai, who is on the Detroit Red Wings’ minor-league team.
Zeev Buium’s eight-year contract extension, at the end of this summer like no other for individual salary escalation in the NHL, comes just 11 days before a change in the league’s collective bargaining agreement shortens the maximum contract term to seven years.
That’s partly why Buium got the deal he did Friday. That, and did we tell you Makar just re-signed with the Colorado Avalanche for $163.2 million and that the Anaheim Ducks nearly lost Carlsson to a free-agent offer sheet?
“It was something that we really batted around a lot,” GM Johnson told reporters, “and wondered, ‘OK, what really is our threshold at the end of the day to make an investment like this in a player with 70-some games (and) is very early in his development.
“I'll be honest with you, if you had asked me five years ago if I would ever have considered something like this, my answer would have been immediately ‘no.’ But I didn't want to get caught up in some archaic thinking of this. I wanted to get aggressive enough, knowing where the landscape is going ... that if we could get to a number that maybe we felt is, admittedly, overpaying right now but (could) be a really good deal down the road, we were aggressive in exploring this as much as we could.”
Hired in May, Johnson has made his first legacy signing. Whether Buium develops into a top-pairing offensive defenceman or goes bust, this contract will be remembered as the Canucks' initial contribution to the NHL’s stunning new economic landscape.
Buium played 45 games for the Canucks after December’s blockbuster and contributed three goals and 12 points while going minus-24 amid the team’s defensive chaos. But he also logged 20:20 of average ice time, two minutes more than he played during 31 games for the Wild, and noticeably grew in confidence late in the season.
He has undeniable, elite offensive potential with his mobility and puck skills, but is also a six-foot, 183-pound left-shot defenceman who needs to get stronger and harder to play against.
He becomes the highest-paid defenceman in Canucks history.
“This contract isn't about Zeev the player today or tomorrow,” Johnson said. “It's where we see him in three, four and five years.
“(It is) not just his play but who he is as a person. He brought such an energy and the leadership-type quality that you really don't find in a lot of 20-year-olds, which is astonishing. He and I just had a conversation about it; 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. He's going to make mistakes and he's going to have (poor) stretches. But ... we're very confident in what he's going to be as a player. His ability to impact the dressing room and his overall desire to win is extremely evident.
“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.”
What Buium possesses beyond potential is a winning pedigree — at the University of Denver and with the United States’ junior and senior world championship teams — and a hunger to compete. This is not a player who is going to run from a fight or hide from the spotlight.
He is unlikely to buckle under pressure or the expectations that come with signing a $75-million contract when he is still years from becoming whatever player he is going to be.
Buium will play this season on the final year of his entry-level contract at $967,000 before a nearly 10-fold salary increase in 2027. If his new contract started today, Buium’s average cap hit of $9.38 million would rank 11th among NHL defencemen.
“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 with arms wide open and have treated me amazing,” Buium said in a Zoom call. “I just think this place and this market and how passionate the fans are and the people are here, it's really special. I think as a hockey player, as an athlete, you know, that's something that you love to play in front of, you love to do.”
Not everyone feels that way. That attitude should certainly help him.
“I really want to empower some of our youth to be able to shape our direction,” Johnson said of his commitment to the team’s best defence prospect. “I don't want those guys to sit and watch; I want them to learn by being active leaders themselves. Zeev has shown that at every level that he's played at. He's won world juniors, he's won national championships, he's won world championships, and that's not by accident.
“So this commitment to him and the belief in him as not just a player, but as a person, I think, is a great sign, a message for the rest of our group.”
It’s a message to everyone.
