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BSH 2024 Community Draft Board, No. 7: Zeev Buium

As we hit the seventh spot on our Community Draft Board, we’re shifting back to the NCAA to talk about someone who might be a familiar name to some of the prospect watchers around here. A teammate of newly signed Massimo Rizzo, Zeev Buium is already one of the more accomplished players in this draft class. With a World Junior gold medal, a National Championship, and a mark as the best offensive defenseman in his conference to his name (just to name a few awards), but will he add a top-10 pick in this year’s draft to that resume? We’ll soon find out.

Pre-Draft Rankings

No. 7 by The Athletic (Scott Wheeler)
No. 8 by Sportsnet
No. 13 by TSN (Bob McKenzie)
No. 10 by Elite Prospects

Statistics

What’s there to like?

The bit that jumps out immediately, of course, is the scoring numbers. Denver does play a very uptempo offense forward style of play, but this isn’t just a case of Buium being propped up by the system, rather, he’s just thriving in this good fit. He closed out the season second in points among all Pioneer skaters, actually finishing ahead of our pal Massimo Rizzo (though Rizzo did miss around two months at the end of the season, but it’s still worth noting), and he did so as a freshman, outpacing both his older brother and one of the top defense prospects in the league (Sean Behrens) on the same team. Buium took a difficult situation — making the jump to the college level at just 17 years old — and hit the ground running pretty immediately, which was certainly impressive.

And as far as the particulars of his game go, there’s a lot to like here. The offense, as we talked about, is fed largely by his hockey sense. The raw tools are obviously working well — he’s a creative passer and able to hit difficult seems in ways that look easy, and he has a quick shot that he’s able to get through traffic well — but the way that he sees the ice is the real driving force behind his success. He isn’t an absolute burner in terms of his speed, but he’s quick and he’s slippery, capable of beating multiple defenders in succession, opening up even more space for his teammates. And here that sense comes into play again — he’s a quick reader of player positioning, is able to read on the fly when an opponent doesn’t have the best positioning, or is a little flat footed, and works quickly to exploit that.

On the purely defensive side, Buium’s angle generally seems to be “play as little defense as possible” — but that’s a good thing. Hear us out: when having to defend in-zone, Buium holds his own well, but he’s quite adept at getting after the puck and forcing turnovers, that is, getting his team off defense and transitioning to offense as quickly as possible, as this is where his game really shines.

His breakout game is, in short, excellent. There’s very little panic in his game, he isn’t pressured easily, and he’s always looking for make a play, rather than just chip the puck off the glass and out. He has a particular strength in breakout plays off the wall — that is, winning the race to a puck along the boards, then winning the battle for it, then beginning transition with a quick-up pass to a teammate. And while this isn’t as flashy of a play as a complete one-man end-to-end rush, this is a skillset that’s very projectile to the NHL.

And finally, a positive on the more logistical side: a lot gets made of players who play in a professional league in their draft year (rightfully so), but a similar amount of noise should be made for a player like Buium who is playing in the NCAA (much less its most difficult and physical conference) as an underager and not just holding his own, but already pretty well thriving. He still has some work to do to get himself where he needs to be to hang at the professional levels (more on that later), but as it stands, Buium is already a bit ahead on the development curve of some of the others in his age group who have only played junior hockey so far.

What’s not to like?

As we said, there’s a lot to like about his game, but that doesn’t mean that he’s without areas to work on. For one, as is often the case with highly skilled players like Buium, we do tend to see him make some high-risk plays with the puck. And while more often than not, he pulls them off and they work out just fine for him, these are the types of plays that would likely stress out an NHL coach, and we also wonder if, though he gets away with these plays against college opponents, if the same will be true when he hits the pros and the amount of time and space he has to work with decreases. So a bit of risk mitigation work will likely be needed with his coaching staff at the next level.

Also, scouts don’t seem to agree on his level of physicality. He plays an aggressive style and creates a lot of pressure that way, to be sure, but he’s not an overly physical player, which would be a knock against him for a team who’s looking to add specifically some physicality.

And finally, we talked about his elusiveness as a skater as a strength of his, but that comes a bit in spite of the somewhat clunkiness of his stride. He’s a very upright skater, with not a lot of flexing in the ankles, and that means that he often loses some speed as he’s coming out of turns and cuts. Now, it hasn’t been a major hindrance so far, clearly, but we can also mark down the skating is a work in progress.

How would he fit in the Flyers’ system?

On a purely numbers game by position level, there could be a fit here. We’ve talked about the right side of the Flyers’ defense as having a bit of a logjam, but the left side is a bit more open (Emil Andrae will certainly be pushing for a spot on the roster soon, but beyond him, the depth in the pipeline thins out). The Flyers also might well have a wealth of offensively minded defensemen, but Buium still addresses a need for the Flyers. He would add a level of skill, broadly, that they need up and down the lineup, but specifically his prowess at moving the puck in transition would be a huge asset to them (as we saw well this season, they’re thin with players who can do this well and consistently, and when one or two of them is out of the lineup, we saw how quickly things can go off the rails).

Their need for a high end defenseman might not be as great as their need for a center, but a player like Buium, if all goes well, would still certainly raise the floor for the team, and that’s something.

Can the Flyers actually get him?

This is when things are starting to get really interesting. The middle of the first round is incredibly fluid as far as where these rankings and mock drafts project players to be going, and the same can be said of Buium. We’ve seen him ranked as high as fourth (in the other ranking over at the Athletic by Corey Pronman), and then as low as 13 by Bob McKenzie. There’s very little consensus among pundits as to where Buium is projected to go, and in turn, likely also very little consensus among NHL teams as to where they’ve placed him in their internal rankings.

Which is all to say, while we may see Buium come off the board way before the Flyers are even gearing up for their pick, the possibility of him slipping to them very much remains open.

What scouts are saying

I’ve been a big fan of Zeev Buium all year, but I do admit there are some questions about his projection. I love the calm, calculated but skilled approach he brings. His ability to bait and deceive forecheckers is high end, the puck protection and evasion in the offensive zone is impressive and he finds a way to be effective everywhere on the ice. There’s a big part of me that feels he should be a bit lower, but replace him with whom? This range is all very close and I could be swayed any number of ways. Buium’s physical play and quickness to chase loose pucks and close wide gaps is a work in progress, but he’s a calculated gunslinger with the puck and has been impressive every game I’ve seen over the last couple years.

Will Scouch, Scouching

An exceptionally mobile skater, Buium uses his feet to activate intelligently off the rush and float into high, soft spaces as a shooting option. He’s shifty on the point, blending and receiving passes to walk down the wall or across the line, and using punches and fakes to open up downhill shooting and passing lanes.

Buium is a gifted passer in transition, he employs weight shifts and dekes to beat the F1 before hitting options through the middle or along the wall. With nine points in his last 10 games, it’s hard to question Buium’s offensive talent or ability with the puck on his stick.

Joey Padmanabhan, EP Rinkside

One player off the poll, another on. Today’s addition is Liam Greentree, a winger who brings a whole lot of scoring potential.

Greentree was a top-scoring winger in the OHL this season, following up a great 16-year-old season for Windsor. The appeal of his game is that he’s a large winger with legit offensive skills. He makes difficult plays often with the puck as a handler and passer and possesses high-end creativity. He competes well enough and can use his size to get to the net although I don’t think he’s the type who is going to run people over. He can score at the net and is able to finish from the faceoff dots. The main concern on Greentree is his skating. He lacks NHL footspeed and he will need to prove the rest of his game is good enough to overcome those issues. Given his size/skill combo, I think he will, and has a chance to be a top-six winger.

Corey Pronman, The Athletic
Close Poll

Previously on the 2024 Community Draft Board…

  1. Macklin Celebrini
  2. Ivan Demidov
  3. Artyom Levshunov
  4. Anton Silayev
  5. Cayden Lindstrom
  6. Sam Dickinson
  7. Zeev Buium
  8. ????
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