A highly paid successor to Quinn Hughes has just been identified in Vancouver

Zeev Buium has a decision looming with the Vancouver Canucks, and it could end up costing them millions.

Heading into 2026-27, the 20-year-old American defenceman is playing out the final year of his entry-level contract with Vancouver.

Buium put up six goals, 20 assists and 26 points across 76 games as a rookie, all on a cap hit of just $966,667.

Three power-play goals and 10 power-play assists made up half of that production, 13 points with the man advantage.

That $966,667 price tag looks like a bargain right now. It won't stay that way if his power-play numbers keep climbing.

Vancouver's year was a mess everywhere else. The Canucks finished 25-49-8, good for 58 points and a minus-100 goal differential, 32nd overall.

The season ended on a sour note too, an L 1-6 defeat at Edmonton on April 16, part of a 4-6-0 stretch over the final 10 games.

New head coach Manny Malhotra inherits that rebuild, and Filip Hronek's 49 points and Elias Pettersson's 51 show where the power play already leans.

Malhotra's power-play call could set Buium's price tag

Is a 26-point rookie season really enough evidence to build a max-term extension on?

Tom Willander also drew power-play looks and finished with 21 points of his own, proof nobody has fully locked down that top job.

Marco Rossi added 35 points in 50 games and Brock Boeser posted 48 in 75, more juice up front than Vancouver's record lets on.

Handing a 20-year-old the reins over a $7,250,000 veteran like Hronek is a gamble. It's also the only real way Vancouver finds out what it actually has.

Betting on himself works a bit like turning down a bird in the hand for a much bigger one that might not land until next summer.

If Buium gets anywhere near 50 points, Vancouver's cheap, cost-controlled defenceman turns into an extension fight nobody in that front office saw coming this time last year.