This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Michael Bunting
Carolina Hurricanes Left Wing
Twenty-three goals and 103 penalty minutes in Toronto, and nineteen of the goals came from inside twenty feet.
| 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 | TOR | 82 | 23 | 26 | 49 | +21 | 103 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 174 | 13.2 | 15:48 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 187 | 57 | 69 | 126 | +47 | 197 | 12 | 0 | 7 | 392 | 14.5 | 15:38 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
23 goals and 26 assists in 82 games for Toronto — 49 points at 15:48 a night, plus-21, with 103 penalty minutes on 174 shots at 13.22 per cent.
55.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,141 minutes, the 91st percentile. His ice went 65-36 against an expectation of 61.32-48.29 — twelve goals better than the chances predicted at the defensive end, which is a Toronto goaltending story rather than a Bunting one and should be read as such.
He signs in Carolina as a free agent at 28, with 187 NHL games behind him.
The Finesse Game
174 attempts at a median of 18 feet, 55 per cent from inside twenty and 11 per cent from beyond forty. Nineteen of his goals came from inside twenty feet at 19.0 per cent, five from the middle band, and none on nineteen shots from beyond forty.
His career shooting rate is 14.54 per cent across 187 games, which is very high and is a function of where he shoots rather than how. He arrived in the league at 26 and has scored 57 goals since, all of them from the same places.
This is the player Carolina spent last season not having. The club generated more chances than anyone in hockey and finished 31st at converting them; Bunting’s entire professional identity is standing in the one part of the ice where conversion happens.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 186 with 103 penalty minutes, and the minutes are the game rather than an accident of it. He gets under the skin and draws the retaliation, and he takes his share of the answering penalties too.
2.41 miles a game at the 37th percentile and 22.5 mph at the 60th. He is not fast and does not need to be; the work is done in a twenty-foot radius.
The Intangibles
A fourth-round pick at 117th overall in 2014 by Arizona, and a full NHL season did not arrive until he was 26.
What he is being paid for is a shot chart and a temperament. What Carolina will have to manage is that 103 penalty minutes on a club whose penalty kill was sixth in the league is a cost as well as an asset.
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
70.0% of his attempts in the slot, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
62% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“He gets under the skin and draws the retaliation”
“standing in the one part of the ice where conversion happens”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,141 minutes
- Expected goals
- 55.9%
- 91st pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.7%
- 68th 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: 65 for, 36 against. Expected: 61.3 and 48.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 21 points above where the report does. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 70 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, 2022-23 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 22.5 mph
- 66th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.44 a game
- Distance
- 2.41 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 89.0 mph
- 62nd 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 84.9
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
2022-23 with TOR · 1141 minutes at five-on-five
- Mitch Marner35%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- TOR took 54.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 55.9% — 1.4 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,141 minutes at five-on-five — 77th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auston Matthews | 58.4% | 50.6% | 57.4% |
| William Nylander | 55.7% | 56.1% | 59.5% |
| Mitchell Marner | 58.4% | 54.7% | 55.8% |
58.4% together, 50.6% for him apart and 57.4% 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
253 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 24 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 56% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.