It's not about Michael Bunting, not scoring, although he hasn't scored.

It's about his role and how he hasn't fulfilled it to date.

Good morning to you.

Good Tuesday morning.

I'm Dan Kovach, of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports.

This is Daily Shot of Penguins.

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Penguins versus Flames tonight in Calgary, Alberta. That's a 9.38 p.m. Eastern time faceoff.

I'm expecting Bunting to be back in the lineup after being somewhat surprising healthy scratch over the weekend in Winnipeg.

And the reason I'm expecting that is that he's a good hockey player.

He's not a fringe forward on this roster.

He is, rather, someone you would sit in the press box for a game to send a rather strong message.

And in this specific case, it wouldn't be that Buntings currently got through six games played, zero goals and one assist, even though he's been on a line with two guys that have started off the season pretty hot in Yvgeny Malkin and Ricard Raquel.

Nope.

The issue is that, well, think about this. Let's go back to the Jake Gensel trade,

which if you've been listening to this show for a while, you might recall that I wasn't exactly

nuts about. In fact, I really didn't like it, but it was bunting the immediate acquisition who began to turn me around on it.

Because he looked like a lot of things that the penguins are missing.

He was cutting through the slot diagonally.

He was knifing his way into hard areas, to borrow Mike Sullivanism.

And in doing so, he was creating all kinds of space,

...