The Vancouver Canucks signed Zeev Buium to an eight-year, $75.04 million contract that will take effect with the 2027-28 season, the team announced Friday night.
Buium, 20, could have become a restricted free agent after the upcoming season, but he said that didn’t interest him.
Once Vancouver acquired him as part of a Dec. 12, 2025 trade that sent defenseman Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild, he knew he wanted to stay there.
“It was pretty easy for me,” Buium said, per NHL.com. “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 Wild selected Buium with the No. 12 overall pick of the 2024 NHL Draft.
Between the two teams, he appeared in 76 games in the 2025-26 season and scored 26 points (six goals, 20 assists). Of those games, 45 came with the Canucks and included 12 points (three goals, nine assists).
Despite the small sample size, Buium is a “proven winner,” general manager Ryan Johnson said.
“It’s something that we felt strongly in Zeev, in his pedigree, he’s a proven winner,” 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.”
Johnson said the contract was about more than what Buium brings to the ice.
“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.”
