Bryan Rust

Last Season

Twenty-nine goals and 36 assists in 72 games — 65 points, even in plus-minus, at 19:57 a night with eight power-play goals.

The Finesse Game

The shot location is why a 34-year-old scored twenty-nine. Forty-nine per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside twenty feet, median 21, and thirty goals came out of 296 tries.

The speed is still genuinely good — he is among the quicker forwards on the club — and it is what gets him to that ice before the defenceman does.

Thirty-six assists is a career-high sort of number.

The Physical Game

Five foot eleven, 202, and he plays a harder game than that. Twenty-six penalty minutes. He forechecks properly and does not avoid the traffic where his shots come from.

The Intangibles

Forty-eight point one per cent of the expected goals, 36th percentile — the weakest of Pittsburgh’s regular forwards, and a number that sits oddly next to sixty-five points.

The goals went 39-34 in his favour anyway.

Eleven points in his last ten. He is 34, an eightieth overall pick, two Stanley Cups, and 502 points in 710 games for one organisation. On a club whose three best players are all approaching or past forty, he is the young one.