Penguins A to Z: Streakiness impeded Bryan Rust

With the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 2022-23 season coming to an end without any postseason action, the Tribune-Review will offer Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 49 individuals signed to an NHL contract — including those whose deals do not begin until next season — with the organization, from mid-level prospect Corey Andonovski to top-six winger Jason Zucker.

This series will publish every weekday leading into the NHL Draft on June 28 and 29.

(Note: All contract information courtesy of Cap Friendly.)

Bryan Rust

Position: Right winger

Shoots: Right

Age: 31

Height: 5-foot-11

Weight: 192 pounds

2022-23 NHL statistics: 81 games, 46 points (20 goals, 26 assists)

Contract: In the first year of a six-year contract with a salary cap hit of $5.125 million. Pending unrestricted free agent in the 2028 offseason.

(Note: The first three years of Rust’s contract contain a no-movement clause.)

Acquired: Third-round draft pick (No. 80 overall), June 26, 2010

Last season: A common cliche to describe goal-scorer is “streaky.”

And Bryan Rust isn’t ignorant of that adjective. Nor is he immune from it.

After going 14 games with only one goal and one assist throughout most of November, Rust broke through with a goal and three assists during a 6-2 home win against the St. Louis Blues on Dec. 3.

Following that game, he tried to make sense of his futility before that outburst.

“Hockey is a funny game,” Rust said. “Most sports are kind of funny. Everybody goes through things where everything is going your way. And everybody goes through things where everything is not. You’ve just got to try to take it day by day, keep working hard, focus on those little things. Just kind of making sure the rest of my game is rounded out and I think the offense will come.”

In terms of a base figure, the goals came over the course of 2022-23. Rust — who missed only one game last season in order to attend to the birth of a child — reached the 20-goal mark for the fourth consecutive season. But something was off.

Rust took that streakiness cliche to extremes throughout the 2022-23 campaign. After getting goals in the first two games of the season, Rust only generated three goals over his next 22 games. And that futility came despite Rust being regularly deployed on the top two lines as well as the top power-play unit (at least until he was replaced by Rickard Rakell by early December).

As the season wore on, Rust’s production followed a familiar pattern. After the NHL’s holiday break in late December, Rust had goalless slumps of nine, six and nine (again) games.

Oddly enough, Rust’s offense picked up in the final weeks of the season as the Penguins’ playoff hopes began to erode. In the Penguins’ final 12 games, Rust was second on the team with five goals (as part of eight points overall).

Rust’s season came to an early end in the regular season finale April 13 when he suffered a right-hand injury that required a month to heal.

The future: After missing the playoffs for the first time since 2006, few members of the roster should have job security. But Rust, even with his shortcomings in 2022-23, appears to be safe, if only because he has a no-movement clause in his contract.

Even with his limited goal output, Rust offers quite a bit in terms of his forechecking abilities through his fleet skating. And he’s more than capable of playing on either special teams unit as he averaged 2:10 of power-play ice time and 1:36 of short-handed ice time per contest.

Perhaps even more importantly, he has the trust of franchise center Sidney Crosby (to say nothing of an established comfort level with the other franchise center, Evgeni Malkin).

Rust still offers quite a bit to the Penguins even when he isn’t scoring. But his streakiness impeded him in 2022-23.

Follow the Penguins all season long.