Demoted to the fourth line at practice on Monday, head coach Sheldon Keefe said he was confident that Bunting will find his way back to the top line with Auston Matthews, eventually.
NEWARK, N.J. — It came as a bit of an unexpected development when the Toronto Maple Leafs moved Michael Bunting off the team’s top line ahead of their game against the Vancouver Canucks in favor of Alex Kerfoot.
It turns out it was less to do with Kerfoot and more about Bunting's play as of late.
"I just want him to worry about his game," Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said following practice on Monday "That’s a big part of why I made the change with the lines."
The 26-year-old Bunting has mustered just one and two assists in his last seven games. While he's not expected to be the driving force for offense on a line that consists of star players Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, he is supposed to help generate some offense, and that simply hasn't been happening.
Perhaps he needs to go back to basics.
"I don’t know. It is what it is and hopefully, I’ll get it back here just play my game, get to the net and work those areas my strengths at," Bunting said when asked about where he feels his game is currently at.
Bunting found instant success with Matthews and Marner last season while on the top line last season, his first as a member of the Maple Leafs. He had 23 goals and 40 assists in 79 games, in his first full season in the NHL, And although he is only four goals away from matching the career high, he is well off the points-per-game pace he reached last season with just 42 points in 63 games played.
Some of that can be contributed to the fact that the book may be out on Bunting. The Scarborough native has developed a reputation with officials and can often be seen reacting to penalty calls and non-calls.
He's been taking fewer penalties, but at the same time, it can be difficult for him to walk the line of taking penalties while playing to his strength, which is being a pesky net-front presence.
"I’ve been doing it my whole career, walking that line," Bunting said. "Sometimes, I go over it but I feel like lately, I haven’t been. I’ve been staying out of the penalty box."
At practice on Monday, Bunting was demoted to the team's fourth line, skating alongside rookie call-ups Pontus Holmberg and Alex Steeves. Following the session, Keefe spent some time chatting on the ice with Bunting, as he attempted to explain the move that was designed to help the player get to build up his confidence.
"I want him to be able to focus on his game. Get back to skating with the puck and making plays and being confident with it. I think when you can put him in a different spot where to me where I really think he can be a driver of that line and be a leader on the line," Keefe said. "Clearly there’s a bit of mental block there for him right now and we’re trying to help him through that. He’s an important guy. I have full confidence he’ll end up back with Matthews before long.
"But I think this is an important period here where we give him every chance to find his game to where we need it to be."
It’s not the first time Bunting got demoted off the top line.
In October, the Maple Leafs moved Bunting off the top line in place of Kerfoot for similar reasons.
“I certainly don’t look at it as a promotion,” Kerfoot said at the time as both he, Bunting and the team were struggling to put wins together.
Eventually, Bunting found himself back on the top line, which is why Toronto is expecting it will happen again between now and the end of the season.
Bunting is an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season. He signed a two-year, $1.9 million contract with the Leafs in the summer of 2021.