{"id":448571,"date":"2026-01-31T01:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T01:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/448571\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T01:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T01:42:07","slug":"predators-open-to-trading-michael-bunting-michael-mccarron-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/448571\/","title":{"rendered":"Predators Open To Trading Michael Bunting, Michael McCarron \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite remaining in the conversation for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference, the Nashville Predators are still expected to sell off a few pieces leading up to the trade deadline. In the most recent rendition of <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/podcasts\/32-thoughts\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">32 Thoughts<\/a>, Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman shared that the Predators are assessing the market for forwards <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/buntimi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-30_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Michael Bunting<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/mccarmi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-30_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Michael McCarron<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If Nashville ultimately trades Bunting, it\u2019ll be the third consecutive year he\u2019s been moved at the trade deadline. He was included in the 2024 trade that sent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/guentja01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-30_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jake Guentzel<\/a> to the Carolina Hurricanes and the 2025 deal that sent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/n\/novakth01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-30_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Thomas Novak<\/a> to the Pittsburgh Penguins.<\/p>\n<p>Relatively recently, some pundits have equated Bunting\u2019s perceived trade value to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/sherwki01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-30_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kiefer Sherwood<\/a>. Sherwood was recently traded from the Vancouver Canucks to the San Jose Sharks for a pair of second-round picks and a low-level prospect, without an extension in place. It\u2019s not a direct comparison due to Bunting\u2019s lower physicality compared to Sherwood. Still, they have fairly similar scoring contributions despite Bunting averaging nearly three minutes fewer per night.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his 12-goal, 29-point campaign this season, there shouldn\u2019t be any expectations for Bunting to contribute on a team\u2019s top line, particularly a postseason-bound one. He is likely to enter the secondary market for contenders interested in players like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kaneev01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-30_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Evander Kane<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, McCarron is much more of a physical presence that contending teams could use in their bottom-six. Throughout the last three years, McCarron has scored 20 goals and 46 points in 196 games with a 53.6% faceoff percentage, adding 439 hits.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the value he could provide, he shouldn\u2019t be too expensive to acquire. McCarron is a 30-year-old pending unrestricted free agent who\u2019s only earning a salary of $900K. Any contending team looking to strengthen its fourth line ahead of the playoffs may consider a player like McCarron.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite remaining in the conversation for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference, the Nashville Predators are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,232122,232123,7523,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-448571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-michael-bunting","11":"tag-michael-mccarron","12":"tag-nashville-predators","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}