A few months ago, when David Carle was asked about Zeev Buium’s year for him at the University of Denver and then for Team USA at the world juniors, he called it a very good one.
When Carle was asked that same question on a recent June phone call, he reset the bar.
“It turned into a great year,” Carle said.
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Great, he acknowledged, might actually be underselling it. In recent weeks, when Carle has been asked a number of times if the rise of Buium into one of the 2024 NHL Draft’s stars surprised him, he — the one who recruited him — has answered “yes.”
“We thought he’d be an everyday contributor, we thought he’d be a good player, but it’s the most productive freshman year of anyone that’s ever played college hockey at the position he’s at basically,” Carle said this time. “So were we expecting that? No, we weren’t. I think he exceeded everyone’s expectations. He came into the year as maybe a first-round pick, that’s kind of where everyone had him, and it seems like he was just moving up five spots, 10 spots, constantly.”
At that midway point, when things were changing fastest into the world juniors, Carle turned to John Vanbiesbrouck, Team USA’s general manager and USA Hockey’s director of hockey operations, after an exhibition game ahead of this year’s tournament: “I’m like, ‘He’s easily a top-10 pick, isn’t he?’ Because I know, but I don’t know. I don’t watch it like you do and like he does. I coach my team. And he goes, ‘Top 10? Let’s try top four. The way he impacts the game, there’s no one that does it like he does.'”
A gold medal at the world juniors and NCAA championship later with Buium, the last part of that conversation with Vanbiesbrouck stuck with Carle as he watched his top defenseman continue to emerge in the second half of his draft year.
In the Frozen Four semifinal, he played him 31 minutes against Macklin Celebrini and the Boston University Terriers. In the final, he played him more than 29 minutes against the No. 1-ranked Boston College Eagles.
In the months since, when NHL teams have called, he has reminded them of the true history of his freshman season. That his 50 points in 42 games are the most by an under-19 freshman defenseman in 40 years — more productive than names like Hutson, Hughes, Fox, Werenski and McAvoy. That in the middle of that season, as the youngest player on Team USA at the world juniors, he led the tournament in plus-minus at plus-11, the Americans outscoring the opposition 14-3 with him on the ice at even strength.
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He has also made a case to NHL clubs similar to the one Vanbiesbrouck made to him in arguing for him as a top-five pick way back in December.
“I don’t believe that there’s anyone in the draft that impacts the game more than Zeev does when he plays it,” he’ll tell people.
Vanbiesbrouck and Carle aren’t the only ones who’ve caught on now.
When they faced him in the Frozen Four semifinal, Celebrini, who two years earlier was Buium’s teammate and classmate at Shattuck St. Mary’s, said he was “blown away” by “how he has progressed the last couple of years and to see the player he is today.”
“I thought he was the best player on the ice,” Celebrini said of BU’s meeting with Denver. “It has been really cool to see that. … He’s gotten taller, he’s gotten bigger, he’s gotten smoother, faster. The one thing that really impressed me was his ability to really control the game. He kind of controlled the pace of play every time he was out there and not a lot happened when he was on the ice. He’s able to shut plays down.”
Ryan Leonard, who was on the wrong side of the final with BC, called him “dominant.”
“When he came to BC, we knew he’d have a really good game but we didn’t know he’d have this hot a start. But the talent speaks for itself. He’s really skilled. He can make any play at any time,” Leonard said.
NHL Central Scouting caught on quickly, too, ranking the left-shot defenseman fourth on both their midseason and final lists of North American skaters for the 2024 NHL Draft.
Despite his historic production, his game is also so much more than just his offense. By year’s end, he was known for locking opposing players up defensively, which included assignments to stay on top of players like Celebrini and Leonard.
It didn’t just happen overnight, either.
According to Carle, Buium “spent a lot of time with (Denver assistant coach) Dallas Ferguson watching video, he spent a lot of time watching Sean Behrens, he spent a lot of time watching his brother Shai (a Red Wings prospect and teammate at Denver), and he became a student of the game on the defensive end of it.”
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According to Carle, his attention to detail without the puck turned into a strength.
According to Carle, while his defensive play found another level, his offensive game did too, becoming more dangerous and intentional. After holding onto the puck too long in the offensive zone early on in the season, he began making a move and attacking, “drawing 2-3 people to him and then making the next play.”
Said Carle: “I vividly remember his brother telling us that he told him that ‘Hey, when you get to Denver you’ll learn how to defend.’ Now, it takes an individual who wants to learn how to do it. I think sometimes you see it in today’s game where there’s a lot of players where that’s where their care level is, it’s on the offensive side of the puck in the offensive side of the game. And Zeev, never once this year did we have to sit there and try to convince him to be a better defender. He had an elite level of determination to want to learn, and prove, and grow at it.”
As the year progressed, Zeev learned what Carle and his staff always try to impart to their players, which is “the better you defend the less you have to do it.”
“We’re keenly aware that players want to play offense, they want to score goals, they want to make plays. But the players who defend the best get to play offense more. And I think Zeev really connected on that point,” Carle said.
Though Carle said he showed that all year, it, too, really began to flourish at the world juniors.
“I told people, ‘Take away the power play for many elite power-play defensemen that we’ve seen over the last 5-7 years and what (are) their games?’ Well Zeev didn’t have power play at the world juniors and he was still impactful, he still helped the team win, he produced at a five-on-five level but he also defended at a five-on-five level,” Carle said.
“So there’s just layers to his game that, again, that’s where I go back to: There’s not a more impactful player in the draft than him.”
Ask Buium if he has exceeded his own expectations and he shakes his head.
“I’ve got that question before but I know what I can do out there. So for me, it’s not completely shocking. I’m grateful that it’s going my way, though. Hopefully it just keeps going,” Buium said at the world juniors.
“I’ve had a lot of belief and confidence in myself ever since those Shattuck days. Going back to my 15s year, no one thought I was going to make NTDP and I had the confidence in myself and the belief within myself that I could do it. I’ve never taken a back seat to anybody and I’m not going to do it now,” he said again at the NHL Scouting Combine.
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In interviews at the combine, that is what he sold to teams, too.
“Shai said to ‘just be yourself. You want to go to a team that wants you for you and you don’t want to be someone else, get drafted by a team, and then you’re not the same person.’ Hopefully the best version of me is good enough,” he said.
He says his shiftiness and the head and shoulder fakes everyone talks about in his game come from playing roller hockey growing up in California, and watching and playing with Lane and Cole Huston — also masters of it — with USA Hockey.
“In roller hockey, you can’t really stop that well and there’s no offside or anything so you’ve got your guy the entire way and you’ve got to try to beat him somehow one-on-one to make a play. I feel like I’m really good at reading defenders’ heels and trying to work around them so if I can just make one move to get around them, I’ll try it. I’m pretty quick and it’s more on instinct.”
His creativity, he says, comes from playing forward all the way up with the Los Angeles Jr. Kings, only switching to defense full-time in his 14-year-old season at Shattuck.
“I love to be creative, I love to make plays, and obviously when you’re doing that you’re going to mess up sometimes. That’s the game, that’s hockey. I love to be creative and try to find space for my teammates and myself. And when the puck’s on my stick I’m pretty confident that I can make a pretty good play,” Buium said.
His impressive man-to-man defense has just come through time and effort. It’s something he says he’s “really proud about.”
“I’m not a shutdown defenseman but I do take pride in that game and I want to be a guy who can play in those big minutes. Everyone knows how much work and effort I’ve put into it,” Buium said. “It’s just working on it every day. Obviously I’m not going to perfect it but the closer I can get to minimizing the kinds of mistakes that I make and being very consistent with my defensive game, that’ll help me. My gap control, closing plays when it gets to the line, is really, really good.”
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He’s also quick to say that he has simply just grown, and that that has been as transformative for him as anything else.
He was 5-foot-2 in his under-15 season, 5-foot-8 coming out of it after a big growth spurt during COVID-19, and 5-foot-9 when he joined the national program at 16. At the combine, he measured at 6 feet — a listing he was relieved to see — and 186 pounds.
After the draft, he’s eager to get back in the gym and on the ice with the small group of buddies he skates with at 8 a.m. from Monday to Friday during the summertime at home in San Diego.
Up next, he wants to get better in how he defends bigger, stronger players around the net, while still using his hockey IQ and sense to play to his strengths instead of outmuscling them.
“I’m a two-way, more offensive-minded defenseman and I use my hockey IQ with everything that I do. That’s my game,” he said.
That game, Carle insists, is going make him an “excellent player” for whichever team takes him near the top of the draft. That team’s also getting, he insists, “a very competitive person, and someone who loves to win and will do what it takes to win.”
“He has been a joy to work with,” Carle said.
— With reporting in Buffalo, N.Y., and Gothenburg, Sweden
(Top photo: Richard T Gagnon / Getty Images)
