This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Michael Bunting
Toronto Maple Leafs Left Wing
The 3rd-most penalties drawn of all 393 forwards, and a 60.0 per cent chance share at 26.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | ARI | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 20.0 | 9:33 |
| 2020-21 | ARI | 21 | 10 | 3 | 13 | -1 | 12 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 38 | 26.3 | 16:42 |
| 2021-22 | TOR | 79 | 23 | 40 | 63 | +27 | 80 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 175 | 13.1 | 15:33 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 105 | 34 | 43 | 77 | +26 | 94 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 218 | 15.6 | 15:30 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
79 games, 23 goals and 40 assists at 15:33 a night, plus-27, eighty penalty minutes, 175 shots. Two of the twenty-three came on the power play. Hundred-and-seventeenth overall in 2014 by Arizona — the fourth round — three seasons, 105 games, 77 points.
The Finesse Game
2.20 penalties drawn per 60 is the 3rd-most of all 393 forwards, against 1.56 taken at the 92nd percentile.
Only Ryan Lomberg and Brendan Lemieux drew more per minute in the entire league, and neither of them scored twenty-three goals.
Sixty-eight per cent of his attempts came from the slot at a 17-foot median, the 95th percentile among forwards.
3.09 even-strength points per 60 is the 95th percentile and 60.0 per cent of the expected goals the 98th — the third-best chance share on the club, behind only Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, whose line he played on.
And that is the caveat. He started 58.3 per cent of his end-zone shifts in the attacking end, the 90th-highest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts, and did it beside two men in the league’s top six for chance share.
8.55 shots per 60 is the 69th percentile at 13.1 per cent.
The Physical Game
Eighty penalty minutes in seventy-nine games at 6-0 and 186 pounds, and 4.15 hits per 60 at the 54th percentile.
He draws more than he takes by two-thirds of a penalty per 60, which on a club that ran the 2nd-best power play per minute in hockey is worth more than it would be anywhere else.
The Intangibles
22.8 mph is the 75th percentile and 5.2 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 the 50th, against 9.23 miles per 60 at the 18th.
His shot is 87.7 mph, the 32nd percentile — soft, which is why the seventeen-foot median matters.
He is 26, a fourth-round pick who did not hold an NHL job until 24, with seventy-seven points in 105 games. Sixty-three points, the third-most penalties drawn in hockey and a net-front shot chart are the case. A chance share produced on the first line beside a sixty-goal scorer is not evidence he can produce it elsewhere, and one full season is one full season.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
67.5% of his attempts in the slot, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- durable· was available
79 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
60.0% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 52.6% for his club in the minutes he sat: +7.4, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“2.20 penalties drawn per 60 is the 3rd-most of all 393 forwards, against 1.56 taken at the 92nd percentile.”
“Sixty-eight per cent of his attempts came from the slot at a 17-foot median, the 95th percentile among forwards.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,119 minutes
- Expected goals
- 60%
- 98th pct
- Shot attempts
- 57.2%
- 96th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 88 for, 59 against. Expected: 62.3 and 41.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 5 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 79 games
- Top speed
- 22.8 mph
- 83rd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.34 a game
- Distance
- 2.39 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 87.7 mph
- 53rd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 1119 minutes at five-on-five
- Mitch Marner55%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2021-22
- The club
- TOR took 54.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 60.0% — 5.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,119 minutes at five-on-five — 79th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auston Matthews | 62.6% | 50.8% | 61.6% |
| Mitchell Marner | 62.8% | 56.4% | 58.0% |
| Morgan Rielly | 54.4% | 63.8% | 52.5% |
62.6% together, 50.8% for him apart and 61.6% for Matthews apart. He was worse away from Matthews, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Matthews did.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
240 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 23 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 57% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.