The Vancouver Canucks would’ve been hoping for a better start to this season for Zeev Buium.
The young defenseman acquired as part of the Quinn Hughes trade hasn’t surged out of the gates, though. He actually had to be demoted in a couple of different ways as the Canucks tried to take some pressure off to allow Buium to find his game again.
Buium still has lots of time to figure out how to grow from here. A rough start to this season is by no means a death knell.
But Buium’s status, having signed a big contract extension but now struggling, does seem to have an impact elsewhere.
There’s a way to connect the Carolina Hurricanes’ difficulty in finding a new contract, or potentially a trade, with Alexander Nikishin to the Canucks’ current situation with Buium.
How Zeev Buium Impacts Alexander Nikishin
The idea here is that in a few different ways, there’s some overlap.
This is what NHL insider Frank Seravalli wrote for Sportsnet on Thursday:
“As Zeev Buium navigates his sophomore season under the pressure of a massive new contract, does that not further support Alexander Nikishin’s case for a new deal in the same realm? Part of the issue is some teams see him as a $6 million defenseman instead of a $9 million defenseman – even if it’s all changing.”
There’s the simple matter that Nikishin probably wants a similar deal to the eight-year, $75 million contract Buium signed in Vancouver.
There’s also the fact that Buium’s struggles emphasize why Nikishin would want a new contract before he’s back on the ice. What if Nikishin came back to play without getting a big-money guarantee, then took a big step back? He’d cost himself a lot of potential cash.
Of course, he doesn’t have such a contract right now, so he only has some of the leverage. The defending champion Hurricanes have leverage, too, because they aren’t in dire need of Nikishin’s return, at least not yet.
That’s the big difference between Vancouver and Carolina here — the Canucks are rebuilding, while the Hurricanes are in contention. But in terms of what Nikishin is seeking, it’s probably similar to Buium.
Hurricanes Possibilities
The fact that Buium was traded as part of the Quinn Hughes deal a year ago does raise wondering about whether an eventual Nikishin trade could bring back some star power to Carolina.
If another team believes in the young defenseman Nikishin the way the Canucks did with Buium, that could form the core of a noteworthy trade.
At this point, though, it’s kind of a waiting game. Vancouver won’t really care one way or the other what Carolina does with Nikishin. The Canucks have already staked their claim to a young defenseman. They just need Buium to keep getting better.
Canucks’ Zeev Buium Impacts Alexander Nikishin Contract, Trade Rumors