Photo Credit: Zack Hill
The modern day NHL is dominated by younger players. Every year 18 and 19-year-olds take their crack at the NHL level, and they are ones who appear to be most talked about. For some other prospects, they will take their time to develop within the system. One of the Flyers prospects who took a couple of extra years is 21-year-old Connor Bunnaman. Bunnaman was drafted by the Flyers in the fourth round of the 2016 NHL Draft, and was subsequently moved through Junior (Kitchener Rangers) and the AHL. Now that he’s in the NHL, he continues the process of developing.
The work only gets harder when a player gets called up to the NHL, and Bunnaman knows what he needs to work on to continue his development path, “My hockey sense,” said Bunnaman, “Just chipping it in, trying to make plays, I know there’s guys up here that will be in the right spot for me.” “The Guys,” as Bunnaman says, are not just there to help him make plays. They’ve also been taking the young Forward under their collective wing, and teaching him more about what it takes to be a consistent NHL contributor, “Every little thing the guys see that they think they can help me, or I could get better at, they’re always talking to me,” said Bunnaman.
Bunnaman was always a gritty and scrappy player, but also someone you have to respect on the offensive side of the ice. His smooth hands and decent skating ability are sometimes surprising, considering his lack of scoring at the NHL level. If Bunnaman keeps developing as he is now, he could turn out to be a similar player to Tyler Ennis or Michal Raffl. Bunnaman’s first NHL goal came on January 13th 2019, and he was happy to get it out of the way, “There was a sigh of relief,” Bunnaman said, “Part of me wishes I’d dangled Chara, go bar down.” According to Bunnaman, at intermission, “All I could do was smile.”
Bunnaman’s NHL development doesn’t stop after the skates come off, and Bunnaman credits the younger players on the team for being his good friends off the ice, “Me, Kube (Nic Aube-Kubel), Joel (Joel Farabee), Ruby (Rubstov), we’re all best buddies off the ice,” said Bunnaman. The skies the limit for this young man in Bunnaman.
Our players are starting to come matured and better by a comity! And now there is many players like Bunnaman starting to put everything together, which we now are starting understand is, Hexy was right! Hexy said little patience are needed, and NAK is just first of many to come! I am not surprised, but rather worried because Hexy drafted so well, and there is a 50 contract limit for every team! So we have to evaluate our prospects, and maybe trade three for one better or something, because we should sign Allison and Lazynski, and others are coming in pipe-line! So Chucky i hope that you have learned from your mistakes, and go fetch us a next superstar, by dealing with our prospect pool, i trust you now!