What do we do with Bunting?

[CelticDruid]

Don't care about Bunting he has only had 7points in his last 22 games.

Can't check worth a damm, always falls over.

Goofball

 

[hamzarocks]

Kadri got 3 in 2018 with a history (he got 2 games in 2014 season for hitting goalie nick backstrom I think)

Bunting is a a diver/whiny player but he has not done anything dirty or suspension worthy before this

Should have been 2 games tops

Funny thing is Matthews has a suspension history with the 2 reg games he missed last year due to cross check on Dahli

If matthews made this same play it would be 1 game only

Same goes for Kucherov vs say Perry/Paul

The league suspended him this long because he isn't a star and is a known rat.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

3 games

Maple Leafs' Bunting suspended three games for hit on Lightning's Cernak

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Michael Bunting has been suspended for three playoff games for his illegal check to the head on Tamp Bay Lightning defenceman Erik Cernak, the NHL's department of player safety announced Wednesday.

www.sportsnet.ca

3 is one too many for me but i get it.

I knew it was a fair number of games when it took this long.

Should have been 2 games tops

It's two games, but

+0.5 games - Bunting
+0.5 games - Leafs.

The game within the hockey game is the entire league loves to screw the Leafs.

FWIW. I think Bunting had no business checking there. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed. He deserved the suspension and 3 games is within reason.

 

[hockeywiz542]

Mirtle: Michael Bunting's rise and fall with the Maple Leafs is a sad cautionary tale

How much more will we see of Bunting as a Maple Leaf? It's a fair question at this point.

theathletic.com

A lot of people here have been comparing Bunting to Nazem Kadri after this latest example of crossing the line, but the key difference is the player themselves. Kadri was already a star when he was suspended in the playoffs (twice), a former No. 7 pick who had pulled in more than $25 million by the time the Leafs decided to send him to Colorado in an ill-advised July 1 deal in 2019.

Bunting? He hasn’t made much of anything by NHL standards. This opportunity was going to be his chance to establish himself, and to cash in as a free agent, after back-to-back 23-goal seasons in Toronto.

Now, it’s hard to know how his story ends with the Leafs. There likely aren’t many chances left. But it’s safe to say this isn’t going to make it any easier.

Contract talks, throughout the year, have been either non-existent or pretty close to such. Coach Sheldon Keefe, meanwhile, has been trying to reach Bunting all season, shifting him up and down the lineup, using the stick approach when the carrot of playing with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner hasn’t worked.

But Bunting has continued to argue with officials, take bad penalties and embellish falls. He’s quickly run out his rope with the league head office, with referees and, now, his own team.

This latest incident, the concussion he delivered to the head of Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak, was merely the capper to all that’s come before.

It’s a real shame, too. He should be something more than this.

Bunting grew up in Scarborough of modest means, in a single-parent household. He battled for absolutely everything, right from the beginning. He was a ninth-round pick into junior hockey, by Kyle Dubas in the Soo. Then a fourth-round pick to the struggling Coyotes, a long-shot prospect who then spent more than 300 games in the AHL, trying to earn his shot.

And when he broke out last season with the Leafs, piling up 63 points on the top line and earning the mantle of being Toronto’s new (and, some said, much-needed) pest, it was one of the top feel-good stories in the organization.

It doesn’t seem that way now.

 

[The Iceman]

Hearing a rumor from sources that Bunting has been suspended 10 games for the Benn crosscheck.

 

[Smif]

Please re-sign him. Teach him to get mad at opposing players rather than the refs and he becomes super annoying to play against. We need more annoying players to play against.

 

[ToneDog]

Bertuzzi, Knies, Bunting, Erne on the left side for me.

 

[Phion Keneuf]

3 years, $3 mil per.

He could be an effective player.

 

[PROUD PAPA]

I'm not a Bunting guy. I'd prefer we added some toughness with the money he will seek.
Unless he comes in really cheap, which i doubt.

 

[Stephen]

You need a group of shift disturbers along with Bunting to play as a group of annoying pests, or someone who has that Bunting personality but backs it up.

 

[TheRumble]

Bunting is gone. Cap only went up 1 million (thanks Bettman) and Bunting deserves to get paid. The guy had a very unusual route to the NHL and gave the Leafs a 2 year deal at minimum NHL wages when he could have just taken 1 and gotten paid off that year he had last year. He'll likely never get another contract after this one again so he should seek to max out his earnings. He's a 27 year old who has only ever been paid the NHL minimum, go get paid Michael and thanks for the service.