Flyers Prospect Update: Connor Bunnaman

VOORHEES, New Jersey - The case of Connor Bunnaman is a curious one for the Philadelphia Flyers organization when considering if he's the guy to help provide depth to the forward core by sticking around on the NHL roster or by being a phone call and 45 minute drive away up the Pennsylvania turnpike in Allentown.

If you can remember all the way back to the 2019-20 season, Bunnaman split time between the American Hockey League (AHL) with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and in the NHL with the Philadelphia Flyers - appearing in 29 games with the former and 21 games with the latter before the coronavirus pandemic canceled the rest of the season.

When the NHL resumed play with the postseason in "Bubble" cities, it was Bunnaman who impressed enough to not only make the Flyers extended roster but also get into game action in four NHL postseason games (two in the play-in round, and two against the Montreal Canadiens in the 1st round).

Any knocks to his strength, conditioning or skating from his rookie season were erased in training camp that fall. Bunnaman made the team out of camp initially, before bouncing back and forth until ultimately sticking with the NHL club after a late January call up.

Fast forward to 2020-21, and to say the pandemic and all the other chaos last season brought affected Bunnaman's game in a negative way wouldn't necessarily be untrue. It certainly had an impact.

"Yeah it definitely was an 'off' [year]," Bunnaman told InsideAHLHockey.com over the summer. "It definitely sucked. Especially going through the quarantine [period]. Like three times, I had two weeks off during the season. And stuff like that."

He certainly wasn't making any excuses for himself, describing one of his flaws this past season was the consistency, or rather inconsistency, of his play at times.

"It was a tough one, but everybody had to [go through] it," Bunnaman said.

After beginning this past season with regular playing time in Janauary and heading into February, things headed off the rails a bit for both Bunnaman and the Flyers in March. For Bunnaman, after the first week of March he appeared in just two games - on the 17th and 31st - before being reassigned to Lehigh Valley in April.

Things went from bad to worse in the AHL for Bunnaman. After two games on the weekend, the Phantoms' season was put on hold after multiple positive cases among the team and its staff - causing Bunnaman to go into another quarantining period not unlike his experience on the taxi squad when the Flyers had their bout of multiple positive COVID cases amongst the NHL club.

Still, Bunnaman was able to finish out the year in the AHL and play in 15 games rather than wasting away on the taxi squad.

"It was fun to get a regular shift out there, play some power play/penalty kill. Just a little bit of normalcy to get a regular routine was nice," Bunnaman recalled, adding it was a fun group of guys to be around in Lehigh Valley.

It appears the message from the Flyers to Bunnaman was simple heading into the offseason, at least according to the Flyers hopeful.

"For my game, personally, just trying to be a little harder to play against every night and be a little more consistent," Bunnaman said of his focus in the offseason. "I think that was one of my flaws this past year. But that's going to be my main goal going into next year, just being a lot more consistent."

He also said he had planned to continue working on face-offs, an area of his game he said he had some off nights this past season that held him back a little.

Bunnaman is certainly the type of player who fits the mold for what the Flyers are looking for in filling out their bottom six forward core, but it will be up to the player to come in and really knock the door down in what is shaping up as a competitive camp for a spot on the NHL opening night roster.