The Philadelphia Flyers are signing forward Michael Bunting according to TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger.
Dreger reports it will be for a $1.2 million cap hit.
The Flyers will look to Bunting for a spark amid an 0-2-2 start to the season.
Bunting, 31, finished last season with the Dallas Stars after he was acquired from the Nashville Predators for a draft pick before the trade deadline. He had gone unsigned over the summer and into the season.
He had 14 goals and 33 points in 74 games split between the Predators and Stars last season.
Bunting added an assist in one playoff game as the Stars were eliminated in the first round.
The 6-foot winger is coming off a three-year, $13.5 million contract that carried a cap hit of $4.5 million.
Drafted 117th overall by the Arizona Coyotes in 2014, Bunting has 109 goals and 252 points in 418 career games split between the Coyotes, Toronto Maple Leafs, Carolina Hurricanes, Pittsburgh Penguins, Predators, and Stars.
The Scarborough, Ont., native has represented Canada twice at the World Hockey Championship, taking home a gold medal in 2021.
Flyers searching for spark
The Flyers’ winless start to the season has sparked some frustration within the organization as head coach Rick Tocchet said the team didn’t have enough “compete” after Monday night’s 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Dreger said on Tuesday’s edition of Early Trading that Tocchet is doing what he can to try and jumpstart his team early in the year.
I think that this is a simple case of recognizing the importance of a good start. And the Philadelphia Flyers, as you’ve identified, haven’t done that. They haven’t been able to accomplish that. And maybe that’s just part of balancing expectation after a successful year. Last year, they felt like they were ready to hit the ice in full stride.
We know what they tried to do in the off-season by, adding a centreman of substance in Leo Carlson on the offer sheet that didn’t pan out. So maybe expectation needs to be tweaked here a little bit.
But again, you’ve got a white-hot head coach in Rick Tochett who is going to do everything he can to continue to push the buttons. Couple of games back-to-back where we heard the coach talk about, ‘Hey, this is on the coach too. I’ve got to find a way to figure this out.’
But he elevated the temperature. So I think that you’re going to see accountability dispensed here in Philadelphia and most definitely the demand for attention to detail because we have not seen that from the Flyers early on.
