This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Michael Bunting
Pittsburgh Penguins Left Wing
Fifty-five points and a minus-19 in the same season, on 254 penalty minutes in 268 career games.
| 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 | CAR/PIT | 81 | 19 | 36 | 55 | -19 | 57 | 7 | 0 | 3 | 168 | 11.3 | 15:41 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 268 | 76 | 105 | 181 | +28 | 254 | 19 | 0 | 10 | 560 | 13.6 | 15:39 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 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
81 games across Carolina and Pittsburgh, 19 goals and 36 assists for 55 points, 7 on the power play, 57 penalty minutes, 15:41 a night and minus-19, with 3 game-winners. He took 52.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,030 minutes, the 68th percentile, and his ice went 45-54 against an expectation of 48.59-44.87.
Four goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and nine more conceded than they called for. Fifty-two per cent of the chances and a minus-19 is the widest gap between play and result on this roster.
The Finesse Game
243 attempts at a median of 23 feet with 42 per cent of them from inside twenty, 169 of those on goal, converted at 11.3 per cent against a career 13.57 across 560 shots.
Seventy-six goals in 268 career games. He scores from the top of the crease and the back door and almost nowhere else, and 19 career power-play goals in 268 games says most clubs have used him on the first unit for exactly that reason.
The Physical Game
He is 6-0 and 186 and took 57 penalty minutes.
254 career penalty minutes in 268 games, which is very nearly one a night from a winger who does not fight. He stands in the goaltender’s eyes, talks at everybody, and collects a great many of those minutes for things that happen after the whistle.
The Intangibles
One hundred and seventeenth overall in 2014 by Arizona, five seasons, four organisations, and 181 points in 268 games.
He did not hold a place in the league until he was 26 and has averaged better than a point every other game since. The value is that he will do the unpleasant work at the net and score while he is there, and the cost is the penalties that come with it.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,030 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52%
- 68th pct
- Shot attempts
- 55.7%
- 91st 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: 45 for, 54 against. Expected: 48.6 and 44.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 19 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 78 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.
Usual linemates
2023-24 with CAR · 738 minutes at five-on-five
- Martin Necas46%
- Jack Drury40%
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, 2023-24
- The club
- PIT took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.0% — 0.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,030 minutes at five-on-five — 62nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Martin Necas | 52.6% | 51.7% | 53.8% |
| Jack Drury | 54.1% | 51.3% | 60.7% |
| Jesperi Kotkaniemi | 50.4% | 52.5% | 59.5% |
52.6% together, 51.7% for him apart and 53.8% for Necas apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
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
243 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 19 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 43% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 20% from beyond forty.