Canucks’ Brandon Buhr: A Young Prospect Worth Knowing

The Vancouver Canucks picked up two young forwards from Toronto on Thursday, sending Aatu Räty to the Maple Leafs in exchange for Jacob Quillan and Brandon Buhr. Quillan might get more attention right away, but Buhr is an interesting name for Canucks fans to get familiar with.

Buhr is from North Vancouver but played in Upstate New York.

For starters, he’s a North Vancouver kid. That gives this story a little local flavour, and there’s something appealing about a player getting a chance to continue his career close to home. Buhr is also a big forward, listed at 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds, who shoots right and plays centre. You can see why the Canucks might want to take a closer look.

Buhr’s college numbers are worth a second look, too. Playing for Union College in 2025-26, he scored 19 goals and added 17 assists in 35 games. That followed another 19-goal season the year before. So, this wasn't a young player who found the net once or twice and suddenly had a career year. He showed he could score consistently at the college level. [For those who care, Union College is in Schenectady, New York, about 20 miles northwest of Albany, the state capital. It’s a small, private liberal arts college with a well-established NCAA Division I men’s hockey program.]

Six of Buhr’s goals last season were game-winners, and he earned a spot on the All-ECAC Hockey Second Team. Those are nice additions to his resume. Scoring goals is one thing, but finding ways to help your team win games is never a bad habit to bring along.

It’s a huge step from NCAA hockey to the NHL, but others have made the jump.

Of course, there's a pretty big step between college hockey and the NHL. Buhr went undrafted, signed with Toronto after finishing his college career, and appeared in five games with the Marlies last season, collecting two assists. He's still early in his professional journey, and there's no reason to expect him to show up in Vancouver and grab an NHL job. In some ways, his story resembles Bobby McMann’s, who grew up in Western Canada and played at Colgate University. McMann is now playing regular minutes for the Seattle Kraken. [Colgate University, located in Hamilton, New York, plays in the same NCAA Division I ECAC Hockey conference as Union College, so Buhr would have faced the Raiders during his college career.]

He'll likely spend most, if not all, of this season in the minors. Depending on how things go, he may have to work his way up through the ECHL before getting a longer look in the AHL. That's part of the process for plenty of young players, and it doesn't mean the Canucks shouldn't be interested.

The big question is whether Buhr’s offence can translate into professional hockey.

The question now is whether Buhr can carry that scoring touch into the professional game. Vancouver needs young players who can develop into useful NHL pieces, and a big, right-shot centre with back-to-back 19-goal college seasons is at least worth a look.

He's not the headline name in this trade, and Canucks fans shouldn't get carried away just yet. But there's a local connection, some size, and a little scoring history to work with. For now, that's enough to make Brandon Buhr a prospect worth watching.