2023-24 Season in Review: Michael Bunting

The Penguins’ trade-deadline acquisition added a burst of energy to the team’s late-season playoff push.

Vitals

Player: Michael Bunting
Born: September 17, 1995 (Age 28 season)
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 192 pounds
Hometown: Scarborough, Ontario, Canada
Shoots: Left
Draft: 2014 fourth round (117th overall) by the Arizona Coyotes
2023-24 Statistics: 81 total games played, 19 goals, 36 assists, 55 total points. (With the Penguins: six goals, 13 assists for 19 points in 21 games.)
Contract Status: Bunting is signed for two more seasons at a cap hit of $4.5 million. He holds a 10-team no-trade list for the 2024-25 season.

Monthly Splits

via Yahoo!

Bunting played his first game for the Penguins on March 9.

Story of the Season

It’s no secret why Kyle Dubas wanted Bunting: the former Toronto general manager had seen him succeed at the pro level playing with Leafs stars like Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner from 2021-23, years after Dubas discovered and had Bunting with the Soo Greyhounds of the OHL back in 2013.

Thus when the Jake Guentzel trade to the Carolina Hurricanes was made, Bunting coming back to Pittsburgh was a natural reunion. It provided the manager with exactly what he could expect out of a player he knew very well. Bunting arrived in Pittsburgh after recording 36 points (13 goals, 23 assists) in 60 games for the Canes while never truly fitting in during his first year with that team.

Bunting quickly took on a bigger role in Pittsburgh, finding traction as a second-line winger playing alongside Evgeni Malkin. Once Bunting settled into that spot, he became a key reason the Penguins challenged for a spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs over the final two weeks of the season. During that critical final stretch he recorded 12 points (three goals, nine assists) in eight games.

Even more importantly, Malkin clicked with him after struggling with a lack of winger chemistry earlier in the season. The Penguins’ second-line center recorded six goals and five assists over the same late stretch, and eight of those points involved Bunting.

Regular season 5v5 advanced stats

Data via Natural Stat Trick. The ranking is out of 17 forwards on the team who qualified by playing a minimum of 150 minutes.

Corsi For%: 54.25% (4th)
Goals For%: 48.65% (13th)
xGF%: 54.05% (5th)
Scoring Chance %: 51.49% (11th)
High Danger Scoring Chance%: 53.78% (9th)
5v5 on-ice shooting%: 10.53% (2nd)
On-ice save%: .868% (17th)
Goals/60: 0.83 (6th)
Assist/60: 1.87 (1st)
Points/60: 2.7 (2nd)

Worth noting: these rankings come among a relatively small sample size, given that Bunting only 288 5v5 minutes with the Penguins.

The gap between the actual and expected in Bunting’s expected goals percentage ranking is yet another reflection of how this team struggled to finish on chances this season.

Bunting’s team-low on-ice save percentage reflects poorly on his (and the second line’s) defense, but his individual scoring rates highlight how efficient he was for the Penguins. Only Sidney Crosby produced points at a more efficient rate.

Charts n’at

It might be lost in the shuffle and excitement of the strong finish to the year that Bunting started out with Sidney Crosby for his first four games in Pittsburgh. They didn’t seem to mesh at first blush (1G+0A for Bunting), but a switch to play on the Malkin line with Rickard Rakell ended up being an immediate success for all three forwards.

While known and remembered for a willingness to get to the front of the net and create chaos, it shouldn’t be discounted that Bunting fares really, really well on setting up shot assists in the offensive zone. He’s not a fast skater and offers very little in the neutral zone in terms of exiting or entering zones, but once the puck gets into the offensive end Bunting’s ability and determination takes over and that’s where his game shines in tight spaces.

It should probably be noted, or at least reinforced that Bunting is more of a menace and tenacious player than an outwardly physical one. He was credited with only 24 hits in 21 games as a Penguin, and even in Toronto barely registered more than one hit per game with a career-high of 85 hits in 79 games. Bunting is not a Chris Kunitz type with the style to bang bodies and often create space physically. Despite not being a true throwback type of “power forward”, Bunting has proven to be more than willing to mix it up in dirty areas near the blue paint and take abuse from defenders while trying to jam pucks in from tight quarters.

Bunting was active shooting the puck with the Pens, registering 55 total shots in 21 games, making for a 214 shot pace over a full 82 games. That’s a pace above the 175 and 174 shot totals he recorded in 2021-22 and 2022-23 respectively. He will spray shots from the outside but does his best work in tight and has demonstrated that he knows how to attack the net.

It’s a small sample but Bunting’s 14.0 shots/60 on the power play with Pittsburgh was better than any other Penguin this season besides Guentzel and Malkin. Be it from the bumper area or right in front of the net, Bunting helped breathe life into the power play with a willingness and ability to put pucks on net in a way the team badly needed, giving them a bulldog sort of mentality that they’ve been missing since the Patric Hornqvist days.

Bunting’s WAR in the past season carries signs his ill fit with Carolina this season. He’s not a player that tends to have good defensive impacts, but his passing and offensive ability are nice adds to the Pens’ second line. There’s also the added benefit that by mixing it up he will draw a lot of penalties — as seen from getting Pittsburgh eight calls on opponents over only 21 games.

Highlights

Bunting’s first goal as a Penguin earned Pittsburgh an overtime point against the Ottawa Senators:

Bunting recorded his 100th career assist on this Malkin goal against the Tampa Bay Lightning:

You can feel the emotion and drive when Bunting scored what ended up being the game-winning goal against Tampa late in the third period here. Nice job to go skate to stick and toss in a loose puck after a swarming shift by the second line with Malkin and Rakell.

Here’s a nice display of hands to corral a breakout pass and slap it by the Capitals.

Bunting shows a lot of what he does best to chip the puck in deep then get in on the forecheck and open up space for Evgeni Malkin to take over and create an easy finish for Rakell in front against the Stars.

This between-the-leg goal against the Nashville Predators was called back, but makes it to the reel nonetheless:

Questions to ponder

Bunting became a regular on the Penguins’ power play late in the season. Although adding him wasn’t enough to fix Pittsburgh’s struggles at 5v4, could it help the team repair the power play next fall? After all, Mike Sullivan compared Bunting to Patric Hornqvist when he first joined the team. The Penguins could potentially use his net-front presence as a tool when reworking this struggling unit next season.

Ideal 2024-25

The more chemistry Bunting can build with Malkin, the better. The Penguins have historically found more success when Malkin has a consistent linemate, and trials with Reilly Smith weren’t fruitful. The Pens should surely be hoping Bunting can replicate something close to his career-best year (23G+40A in 2021-22) next season. He also is a high floor type of player, considering his goal totals in the last three seasons are 23, 23 and 19 and his points have gone 63, 49 and 55 over the last three years, offering some hope that he should live up to close to an ideal situation in the future as a productive supporting player.

Bottom line

Bunting was one of the Penguins’ most impressive players during the last and most crucial stretch of the season. He had a relatively small sample size to analyze, but managed to offer a shot in the arm that can’t be denied by helping to energize the offense and providing a missing element that worked wonderfully with Evgeni Malkin.