Zeev Buium Isn't Quinn Hughes, But What Could He Become?
Zeev Buium is not Quinn Hughes. He’s not going to skate like him, he’s not going to drive offence quite like him, and he’s not going to replace what Hughes meant to Vancouver. But when you watch Buium closely, especially through his rookie year, it’s hard not to understand why the comparison keeps coming up.
Buium is trusted by the Canucks coaching staff.
What stands out most isn’t dominance—it’s usage. At just 20 years old, Buium was already playing close to 20 minutes a night and seeing real top-four responsibility. That doesn’t happen by accident. Coaches don’t hand those minutes to young defencemen unless there’s a level of trust there, even if the results are still uneven. His 26 points in 76 games won’t jump off the page, but 13 of those came on the power play, which tells you where the organization already sees his value: puck movement, decision-making, and offensive touch from the back end.
Like most young defencemen on a rebuilding or transitioning team, there were bumps. The minus-33 isn’t something anyone is going to celebrate. What matters more is how the coaching staff has responded. He kept getting used in key situations. That usually says more about a player’s trajectory than the raw numbers do. Teams don’t stay patient unless they believe the learning curve is worth it.
Related: 4 Random Thoughts About the Canucks' Elias Pettersson.
Hughes went through a similar process as a rookie.
There’s also something familiar in how the Canucks are handling him compared to how Hughes was handled early in his career. Not identical players, not even close in terms of skating level or ceiling, but similar organizational patience. Hughes had his defensive growing pains, too. He learned the hard way that elite offence at the NHL level still comes with nightly defensive responsibility. Buium is going through his own version of that same education.
What you’re really seeing is a player the Canucks already trust with the puck, even if they’re still learning how much to trust him without it. That’s usually the first real step for young defencemen who eventually become core pieces.
Buium’s goal is to become the best version of himself.
No one should expect Buium to become Hughes—that’s not a fair or realistic standard. But if he continues on this path as a confident, puck-moving defenceman who can handle increasing responsibility, then Vancouver didn’t just get a throw-in piece in a big trade. They may have quietly found something a lot more meaningful than people realized at the time.
In the NHL, those are the players you end up circling back to a few years later and saying: We probably should’ve paid more attention to that development curve.