RALEIGH — On most game nights, an NHL player will look across the ice and see a familiar face: a former junior or college teammate, someone they played with on a national team, and probably at least one player they skated aside on an NHL team.
But what if that player lined up across you is best known for getting under the skin of opponents?
Penguins forward Michael Bunting has made agitation an art form. Since the start of the 2021-22 season, only four players have drawn more penalties than Bunting. Connor McDavid, who gets calls with his speed and skill, is No. 1, but the others are cut from the same cloth as Bunting: Brad Marchand and the Tkachuk brothers, Matthew and Brady.
“It’s always fun playing against guys you know and you’ve played with,” Bunting said last Thursday before his first game back at Lenovo Center since being trading by the Hurricanes in March. “They know how you are and who you are. So, yeah, that’s obviously my game. It’s a part of my game. And I feel like I’m at my best when things are going like that and I’m playing hard to play against.
“Nothing changes even though I’m playing against an old team.”
To paraphrase a quote from Eric Lindros about playing on Team Canada with Brendan Shanahan, “Any player I hate to play against I’d love to have as a teammate.”
But what about when that old teammate is now an opponent?
“I just know how every one of us are wired,” Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook said before the game, a 5-1 Carolina win. “And I feel like when somebody leaves, you always want to beat them.
“When I got traded from Arizona, every time you play Arizona, you wanted to beat them, and you want to play hard against the guys that you were buddies with. … He’s wired the same way. He wants to beat us just as bad as we want to beat him.”
While there is likely some respect between former teammates, there’s also more ammunition for someone like Bunting since he knows the guys he’s going against.
“I’ll definitely have funny things to say against old buddies and stuff like that, “ Bunting acknowledged. “It’s always fun playing against friends.”
Hurricanes forward Seth Jarvis agreed Bunting might have a little insider knowledge he could use during the game.
“Yeah, but it’s all respectful,” he said. “He knows what to say and what not to say. So he does a good job at pushing it to the line but not going over.”
Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said it’s easier to face a so-called agitator when you’ve played with them before than to hear a relative stranger yap at you all night.
“Once you get to know the person, then it kind of loses that little bit of luster that you’re not sure what they’re about,” said Brind’Amour, who played 20 NHL seasons. “When you really get down deep and get to know the people, it changes.”
It’s different, however, when there’s some mystery with a chatty opponent.
“Keith Jones was that guy for me,” Brind’Amour said of the current Flyers president of hockey operations and his former Philadelphia teammate. “When we played against him, I couldn’t stand him. And then I became teammates with him, and he became one of my best friends on the team. Now you know that was just kind of an act. It’s part of it.
“But those are the guys you want on your team. The guys that are hard to play against, and that’s all part of it.”
Martinook said pests like Bunting often feed off getting a rise out of their opponents, and the best course of action is to just play them hard.
What about preparing some lines of your own?
“He’s a lot wittier than I am, so I try not to engage with him because I’m just gonna get roasted,” Jarvis said. “So I let him do his thing. That’s not something that really gets me going or gets to me, so I just kind of let him do what he wants to do and then just kind of let it roll off my back.”
However, Jarvis said he might flip the script when he faces former teammates Brady Skjei and Brett Pesce, who are now with the Predators and Devils, respectively.
“Those two might be only two people I might circle,” Jarvis said with a smile.
