Michael Bunting Not Offered Contract By Maple Leafs Before Signing With Hurricanes
The forward signed a three-year, $13.5 million contract with the Carolina Hurricanes on July 1.
Once his season with the Toronto Maple Leafs camp to an end, Michael Bunting had a sense that he was headed elsewhere next season.
The Carolina Hurricanes forward was a guest on the JD Bunkis podcast on Wednesday where he discussed the factors that led to the change of scenery.
He acknowledged that there were "quick talks but nothing extensive" when the 2022-23 season began with regards to an extension. But things stayed quiet once following the end of the season.
"Once the offseason came along and whatnot, and didn’t really hear much, you kind of just figured that it wasn’t going to work out," Bunting said.
Bunting signed a two-year, $1.9 million contract with the Maple Leafs in 2021. As he has acknowledged in the past, there were higher offers for his services, but the player took the chance to play in his hometown and an opportunity to play with star players like Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner instead.
Days after the Maple Leafs were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs by the Florida Panthers, the club dismissed Kyle Dubas as general manager and replaced him with former Calgary Flames GM Brad Treliving.
Weeks after Treliving had taken the position, The Hockey News learned that Treliving hadn't reached out to Bunting's agent, Paul Capizzano, about the player's services.
It worked out for Bunting, who turned his tenure into a massive raise with the Carolina Hurricanes, signing a three-year, $13 million pact with the club this summer.
“I’m not really sure what transpired,” Bunting said of the change in the front office. “You can’t really worry about that, you just kind of keep it going."
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4n2Qw_xjJY[/embed]
Regardless of interest, it was going to be a tall task for the Leafs to be able to keep Bunting. With the salary cap going up $1 million and the Scarborough native scoring 23 goals in consecutive seasons, the raise he got on the open market was just an amount the Leafs weren't going to have room for. Although Toronto did opt to make that money available for a player like Tyler Bertuzzi, who signed a one-year, $5.5 million contract with the club this summer.
“That’s the business and you understand just how it works,” Bunting said. “We’re playing in a cap era. And the cap obviously comes in situations with every single team, and they try their best to make everything work and every team tries to make make the best team that they can with the cap situation that they’re in. So that being said, I totally understand the business side of it. And once free agency opened and Carolina came calling, I didn’t hesitate.”
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