Michael Bunting Providing Leadership, Production on Young Tucson Team
Michael Bunting is only 23-years-old, and by no conventional means is he a veteran of professional hockey, but this season the Tucson Roadrunners forward has been tasked with embracing a leadership role on a very young team off the ice, while remaining one of the team's most productive players on the ice.
For the 2014 fourth-round selection by the Arizona Coyotes, it has been a new and challenging experience, but in many aspects, a rewarding one. And with Tucson tied up in a tight, competitive postseason race in the AHL's Pacific Division, Bunting knows he needs to give it his all as a leader of the club.
"We have a pretty young team, so being a leader is definitely a little different, but it's good," Bunting told Inside AHL Hockey in a recent conversation. "I like it, I like it a lot. I put a lot of it on my shoulders and try to play the best I can to show the young guys how to do it."
To his credit, Bunting has been a driving force of the Roadrunners' offense during his 2018-19 season, split between Tucson and the NHL's Coyotes. He is the team's sixth-leading scorer despite having played at least six fewer games than the players ahead of him on the stat sheet, with 11 goals, 17 assists, and 28 points in 34 AHL contests this year.
His 0.82 points per game mark ranks third on the club, and first among players who have spent a considerable amount of time with the Roadrunners, as only new NHL regulars Mario Kempe (1.10) and Conor Garland (1.06) boast higher averages. Bunting finished the prior season, during which he helped a Dylan Strome-led team to a postseason appearance, with pro career highs in goals (23), assists (20), and points (43).
For the Roadrunners, the help Bunting has provided on offense has come at the right time from both an on-ice perspective and an off-ice one. After Arizona traded away Tucson lineup staples Adam Helewka and Laurent Dauphin, two veterans of multiple AHL seasons and useful offensive players, Bunting has had to bring his A-game as a forward and a locker-room leader.
"We have a pretty young group out there and we play pretty fast and pretty skilled," says Bunting, who made his NHL debut earlier in the 2018-19 campaign and scored his first top-tier goal in the process. "I've been trying to produce as one of the older guys on the team, so that's what I'm trying to do, produce and be a leader out there."
The Roadrunners, per QuantHockey, have the second-lowest average age in the AHL on their roster, at 23 years, 10 months, and 16 days. The oldest consistent AHLer on the club is forward David Ullstrom, who checks in at only 29 years old.
Bunting, who sports an "A" on his jersey as an alternate captain with Tucson, was put in a leadership position more by neccessity than by natural team assignments. But he has adjusted well and embraced the challenge, and is excelling under his new team leadership role.
Teammate and Roadrunners defenseman Kyle Capobianco agrees. "He's a leader on our team, he's one of the older guys on a fairly young club, and he's done a great job for us," Capobianco said. "He's been up and down [to the NHL] a lot this year, and every time he comes back down, he has a great attitude."
Bunting and Capobianco both earned spots on the Pacific Division's AHL All-Star club, and for the former, it was a surreal and special experience to be selected to travel to Springfield, Massachusetts to compete in the All-Star Classic. Coming out of the Ontario Hockey League, Bunting made his professional debut with the Springfield Thunderbirds, then the AHL affiliate of the Coyotes.
When Bunting was introduced on the ice before the All-Star Classic skills competition, the fans in Springfield remembered his valiant efforts for the club, and gave him a deafening cheer. "I was definitely a little bit surprised that they remembered me like that, because I was only there [in Springfield] for one year, that was pretty cool, for sure," he said. "It's a great city, they love their hockey there, so to go back there for this kind of event is really fun."
For now, Bunting is focused on leading the Roadrunners back into the Calder Cup Playoffs. As of this write-up, Tucson (fourth in the Pacific) sits in the postseason picture by virtue of a points-percentage tiebreaker over the fifth-place Colorado Eagles. "I think we have a great group of guys and we're hoping to put along a playoff push."
