Buium will make-or-break return on Hughes trade for Canucks
The Vancouver Canucks made headlines on the weekend by finally moving on from captain Quinn Hughes, shipping him to the Minnesota Wild in return for Zeev Buium, Marco Rossi, Liam Ohgren and a first-round pick in 2026. Overall it’s a solid return for the Canucks considering the circumstances, but the key piece in this deal will be Buium and how he develops. He was considered to be a top prospect going into the season, so if he continues to develop on that path, maybe he can somewhat fill the Hughes-shaped void on the blueline.
Harman Dayal of The Athletic joined Daily Faceoff Live to talk about Buium, and how important he is in this deal for Vancouver.
Harman Dayal: In the aftermath of the trade, I reached out to a lot of different execs on different teams, and the consensus was giving the Canucks pretty high marks for the return they got. And the key to that really was Zeev Buium. They needed an elite piece coming back, a player that the fanbase could look at and go, “this guy could be a star”.
You’re never going to get a Quinn Hughes-type player back in a trade like that. You’re never going to “win the deal”. But Buium, to me, is the make or break piece. Yeah, Rossi’s a nice player, and certainly this Canucks team, given their center-ice issues, really benefits from landing a bona-fide second-line center in Marco Rossi. Liam Ohgren, we’ll see. He could develop into a quality third-line winger. And the first-round pick as well is a nice add on.
But, Buium is the guy that could make the pain and some of the stinging feeling for this fan base minimize a little bit. We already saw flashes of that yesterday in his Canucks debut, where the skating ability, how well he moves pucks up the ice, his ability to already quarterback a power play at the NHL level.
Now, he just turned 20 about a week ago, so he’s very raw. There are going to be ups and downs defensively, but Buium is a player that, before this season started, was widely regarded as an elite prospect in this league. So his inclusion is really what makes this an exciting haul for Canucks fans.
You can watch the full episode here…