Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

17

Bryan Rust

Pittsburgh Penguins Right Wing

Twenty-eight goals in 62 games at 32, with nearly half his attempts taken from inside twenty feet.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2014-15PIT14112-34000342.912:02
2015-16PIT414711+112001685.912:30
2016-17PIT57151328+4800111013.613:38
2017-18PIT69132538+112622312310.616:03
2018-19PIT72181735+102402414112.815:54
2019-20PIT55272956+143081415117.919:46
2020-21PIT56222042+91860615414.319:43
2021-22PIT60243458+71490118013.318:46
2022-23PIT81202646-4312022119.517:54
2023-24PIT62282856+102031319614.319:35
2024-25 so far
Career567172200372+5918730625136812.617:06

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

62 games, 28 goals and 28 assists for 56 points, 3 on the power play, 1 shorthanded, 20 penalty minutes, 19:35 a night and plus-10, with 3 game-winners. He took 53.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 917 minutes, the 77th percentile, and his ice went 60-56 against an expectation of 51.54-45.35.

Eight goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and eleven more conceded than they called for. Twenty-eight goals is a career high and he scored them in 62 games.

The Finesse Game

282 attempts at a median of 21 feet with 49 per cent of them from inside twenty, 191 of those on goal, converted at 14.3 per cent against a career 12.57 across 1,368 shots.

172 career goals in 567 games. Nearly half his attempts come from inside twenty feet because he arrives there before the puck does rather than waiting for it, and a career 12.57 per cent across 1,368 shots says the finishing at that range is real.

The Physical Game

He is 5-11 and 202 and took 20 penalty minutes.

187 career penalty minutes in 567 games is a low total for a winger who spends that much time in the paint. He goes to the net through people rather than around them and takes the punishment that comes with it without answering back.

The Intangibles

Eightieth overall in 2010, ten seasons, all of them in Pittsburgh, and 372 points in 567 games.

Six career shorthanded goals and a plus-59. He is 32, he has scored twenty or more in five different seasons, and he has done all of it in one city.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 917 minutes

Expected goals
53.2%
77th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
53%
79th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 60 for, 56 against. Expected: 51.5 and 45.4.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
96th
Numbers
77th

The two rank him within 19 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 518 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 80 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2023-24 · 917 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2023-24

The club
PIT took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.2% — 2.1 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 917 minutes at five-on-five — 49th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Sidney Crosby54.3%48.3%53.5%
Kris Letang51.7%54.7%48.7%
Erik Karlsson56.7%50.2%52.9%

54.3% together, 48.3% for him apart and 53.5% for Crosby apart. He was worse away from Crosby, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Crosby did.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

282 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 26 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 49% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 16% from beyond forty.