The Vancouver Canucks made a change for Tuesday night.
They relegated Zeev Buium to the third defensive pairing, and they removed him from power play action.
It was a move that must’ve felt necessary. Buium hadn’t begun this season well, and neither had the Canucks as they just allowed goal after goal.
The young defenseman is supposed to have a bright future, but it was clear to everyone that Buium wasn’t yet making the mark he had been anticipated to make.
And so the demotion wasn’t planned to be permanent, one wouldn’t think. It was just a way to move things around, to take a little pressure off Buium, to hopefully move him back in the right direction.
That’s not what happened in his first night lower on the pecking order, though.
Another Bad Night for Zeev Buium
If the hope was that Buium would begin to hit his stride in a lower-pressure role, it didn’t happen on Tuesday night.
The Canucks lost 3-2 to the New York Islanders, and Buium was on the ice for much of the struggle.
He was a minus-2 in a season-low 16 minutes and 32 seconds on the ice. He also missed two minutes with a penalty.
Buium notched one blocked shot, and that was about it. He didn’t have a shot on goal in his 18 shifts on the ice.
It pushed Buium to a minus-6 mark for the season. He has just six shots on goal, and 18 total attempts, through eight games, with a single assist on the points sheet. Buium has blocked seven shots and has just one hit and one takeaway while having given the puck away 12 times already.
Quinn Hughes Shadow
The shadow of Quinn Hughes looms over everything Buium does.
The Canucks traded Hughes last year for a big package from the Minnesota Wild, and Buium was the phenom defenseman going back to Vancouver in return.
Because he plays the same position as Hughes, Buium gets the scrutiny as the guy who, in the long run, is supposed to replace one of the best defensemen on the planet.
That can’t be easy, and Buium is still just 20 years old.
On the one hand, there’s plenty of time. Buium could still develop into everything the Canucks are hoping for.
But on the other hand, it’s clear that things aren’t going well in Vancouver right now — not just for Buium, but for the whole team. It’s not an ideal environment to develop in.
The Canucks will have to hope Buium can handle the adversity, because there’s going to be more of it. The Hughes trade may have been necessary, but it has not helped Vancouver turn the ship in the right direction yet.
It Keeps Getting Worse for Canucks’ Zeev Buium