https://x.com/statz_n_at/status/1702744441168048328?s=46&t=n-m31t4UiW6dY_9Vct4N_w
Last year was a down year, and he was still a productive player. I expect he returns to form this year in a big way. 25+ goals, 60 points. Thoughts?
by Dafish26
@Pittsburgh Penguins
6 Comments
I hope so. I’m a Bryan Rust fan.
I think the fluke was the couple of seasons where he was almost at a point per game and now he’s gone back to his original expectations of being a middle 6 forward.
I think Rust will be a 55-60 pt guy this year, which is fine. I don’t expect that much more from him. As long as Rakell doesn’t regress I’m not too worried about scoring from the top 6, I’m more concerned about how the bottom 6 will perform.
Look, I think everyone harping on Bryan’s year is off base. He had 20 and 26 assists. He was never on the top PP unit, and had only 2 PP goals all year.
The season prior he was getting a lot more PP time, and had 9 goals. The 2 preceding seasons, 6 and 8 goals. So, PP goals alone, and the lack of PP time, explain much of the “decline.” He also played a full minute fewer on average per night than the season prior and nearly 2 full minutes fewer than the 2 seasons before that.
Ice time usually correlates with points. His shooting % also dipped, but keep in mind as much as this year was low, that 17.9% when he had 27 goals in 55 games was also an anomaly.
The 1st unit time is not coming back to Rusty. He’s going to be 2nd Unit, particularly if Tanger is on the 1st (because he’ll go to left halfwall as a RH shot).
That said, I would expect Rust’s Shooting % to rebound to his career avg, and his opportunities to remain as high as last year. That alone would result in 26 goals on the 211 shots he had last year.
Everyone is way too optimistic about a bounce back. He is a one-dimensional undersized player that plays a “selfish” game.
This has always been a scary contract, IMHO.
60 points on PP2? Good luck with that.
Zucker couldn’t even scrape 50 in that role last year, in his career best even-strength season.
I suppose Rust gets those sweet empty net points though.