Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

17

Bryan Rust

Pittsburgh Penguins Right Wing

Fifty-two per cent of his shot attempts came from inside 20 feet — the highest share on the club — and he scored 31 goals in 71 games at 32.

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
2024-25PIT71313465-211850519116.219:45
2025-26 so far
Career638203234437+3820535630155913.017:23

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 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

31 goals and 34 assists in 71 games — 65 points, at 19:45 a night, with 5 power-play goals and 5 game-winners on 191 shots. Minus-21.

48.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 37th percentile. His ice went 33-37 against an expectation of 44.56-47.09 — twelve goals of scoring missing and ten fewer conceded than the chances predicted.

The Finesse Game

191 attempts at a median of 19 feet with 52 per cent of them from inside 20 feet — the highest share of any forward on this roster — converting at 16.2 per cent. He has scored 31, 28 and 20 goals in three of the last four seasons and the method has not changed.

The skating is the reason it works. He arrives at the net first, off the rush, and 34 assists says he can also make the play when the goaltender takes away the first option.

The Physical Game

5-11 and 202 and he forechecks like a man half a foot taller. He is first in, he finishes the check, and he is difficult to move once he has established position in front.

18 penalty minutes in 71 games is a low rate for a player who plays that way. He does not retaliate and he does not take the foul after being beaten.

The Intangibles

A third-round pick in 2010 who spent three years in the American League, and 638 games and 437 points later has two Stanley Cups and a reputation for scoring in May.

He is 33, he has been here his entire career, and he signed a six-year extension in 2022. On a club whose top six is 38, 39, 37 and 32, he is the second-youngest man on it.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,014 minutes

Expected goals
48.6%
37th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
49.9%
51st pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 33 for, 37 against. Expected: 44.6 and 47.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
91st
Numbers
37th

The report ranks him 54 points above where the numbers do. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 81 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

2024-25 · 1014 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, 2024-25

The club
PIT took 49.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.6% — 0.4 below the club he did it on.
The role
First line, 1,014 minutes at five-on-five — 63rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Sidney Crosby51.8%33.3%50.4%
Rickard Rakell51.7%43.5%51.3%
Erik Karlsson48.2%49.0%48.2%

51.8% together, 33.3% for him apart and 50.4% 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

278 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 30 of them goals. His median goal came from 17 feet. 52% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 13% from beyond forty.