Zeev Buium buried a power-play goal Saturday night, and the Vancouver Canucks look ready to build their blue line around his shot.
The 20-year-old scored in a 4-3 win over the Seattle Kraken, putting 3 shots on goal in 19:23 of ice time.
Two nights earlier, against Edmonton, he logged 25:05. Nobody on the Canucks played more.
That number matters. Teams don't hand a second-year defenceman that kind of workload in September by accident.
The contract backs it up. Vancouver signed him to an eight-year extension at the start of September, carrying a $9.38M AAV.
Thursday also brought a jump from the second power-play unit to the first. The Canucks' only goal that night came off his point shot, tipped home by Linus Karlsson.
Saturday's goal came on the second unit, so the staff is clearly still shuffling the deck. And he produced anyway.
Manny Malhotra's blue line plan meets the Oilers twice in three nights
Head coach Manny Malhotra opens the regular season Tuesday in Edmonton, then gets the Oilers again Thursday at home.
Brutal first week for a young defenceman. The Oilers went 4-0-0 in their tune-up games while the Canucks finished 1-3-0.
Buium's goal against Seattle started in his own end. He curled out from behind the Vancouver net, carried through the neutral zone, fed Tom Willander and hammered the return.
"As a guy who wants to make plays and set guys up, I think sometimes the best play is to shoot," he said.
Good. More of that, please.
This shoot-first focus is the right call, and it's overdue. Defencemen who try threading passes through three sticks are how a power play goes stale by November.
He's no stranger to lighting the lamp either. Buium scored 13 goals in 41 games at the University of Denver in 2024-25, third among NCAA defencemen.
Saturday wasn't spotless, though. He went minus-2, a reminder that the defensive side still has homework left.
He knows it. He said he doesn't want to be "out there for 25 minutes giving up three or four grade-A" chances.
An eight-year deal this early is like buying a house after one open house. The staging looks great. You find out about the plumbing in January.
And the depth chart isn't locked. Filip Hronek still led the Canucks' back end at 23:39 on Saturday.
Willander, meanwhile, ate 20:01 and picked up a power-play helper of his own. That's real competition for the premium minutes.
Edmonton won't give Buium clean lanes from the point on Tuesday. Does he keep pulling the trigger when those lanes close?
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Was eight years at $9.38M the right bet on Zeev Buium before he's played his second full NHL season?
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