A couple winters ago in Calgary, Bryan Rust's hands might as well have been cryogenically frozen, colder even than the subzero temps outside the Saddledome.
I don't remember how long his goal slump was, but I can retell vividly what he told me as part of a long talk we'd had that day.
"I'd like to score. I'm going to score," he spoke. "But my game's not going to change regardless. I'm going to keep being the player I've always been."
He did resume scoring, of course. But never like he is now.
His goal in the Penguins' 4-3 overtime victory over the Flyers on this Friday night at PPG Paints Arena was his team-leading 22nd. And he's achieved that, let's not forget, in just 37 games, having missed most of the season's opening month to injury. Of those 37 games, he's now scored at least once in 19 of those.
Yeah, more than half.
How?
The simplest formula is to cite his shooting percentage, currently at 19.5. That ranks No. 1 in the NHL among all 26 players who've scored more than 20 goals, a half-percent ahead of Winnipeg's wonderful marksman, Mark Scheifele. And it ranks No. 1 in Rust's career by, oh, a million miles or so, considering the figure over his first five NHL seasons had been 10.7.
But again, how?
The old hockey scout's mantra is that snipers are born, not made. One hears it on the floor of the NHL Draft every summer. A kid can be coached to defend, to be tougher, even to create. But not to finish. That part, they say, is innate.
I ran this past Rust after practice Thursday in Cranberry, and he bristled, albeit with familiarity.
"I've never believed that," he told me. "Anyone can work to make themselves a better scorer, a better finisher. Maybe there are some guys who do it at a younger age than others, but that's about it."
Hard to argue with results. Jake Guentzel had spoken similarly before the 2018-19 season about working relentlessly to improve his finishes, both in terms of release and accuracy. He and his dad, Mike Guentzel, the former NCAA coach, poured out countless buckets of pucks in the process, all summer long, and it paid off with a 40-goal output. Plus 20 more this season before Jake got hurt.
Rust put himself through a similar process this past summer, as he shared with me Thursday.
"Lots of shots, getting shots off quickly, doing it from a lot of different angles, different situations," he elaborated. "Trying to simulate games as much as possible."
It's paid off for him, too. He's shooting quickly, and he's placing the puck where he wants. And as a result of those payouts, he's also shooting more often, with his 3.05 shots per game blowing away his previous career average of 1.88.
But there's more to this. A lot more.
And that's where I rewind back to Calgary. Because Rust's really hasn't changed. Not when he was struggling to score. Not now when he's doing so every other night. He's still a penalty-killing fixture. He's still backchecking with the same fire. He's still blocking shots, not least of which was dropping for one in the bleeping preseason that brought about that monthlong injury. He's still hitting, bumping and taking a regular beating to win puck battles.
This game, more than anything, felt emblematic of how all that's been a boon, rather than any burden, to his scoring breakout.
It even applied to his goal:
The Penguins were on the power play in the second period, and it appeared the Flyers' Claude Giroux had an easy clear at hand. Except that Rust tangled with him from behind -- legally, I might add -- in a direct pursuit of the puck, and eventually prevailed.
Once that happened, the puck, as if trailing karma around the rink, popped right back onto his blade.
"Sid made a good play to get it back to me," was all Rust would say other than, "I think I got it over the line by maybe 2 inches."
"The effort is the biggest thing there," Sidney Crosby more accurately observed of that goal. "Rusty kept that alive."
This was the next power play, same period:
Rust, like Guentzel, hadn't spent much time on the power play in his first few NHL seasons, and for obvious reasons: There really wasn't room. But with Phil Kessel traded and Guentzel out, Rust's not only got six power-play goals, but he's also replacing some of what Kessel used to do in the rover role, bouncing all about the zone to enhance puck support.
Above, he glides up to center point -- for real -- to offer Kris Letang a short-term outlet. But, rather than holding it, he deftly one-touches behind him to Evgeni Malkin, the actual other point man, for the play to proceed.
"That's confidence," Rust would tell me afterward, grinning wide, of that touch.
He didn't stop there, either, continuing between the hashes, where Malkin fed him for a shot that'd be blocked.
Within seconds, this followed:
Letang gets the goal but, as all involved acknowledged, it occurred only because Brian Elliott had to cheat across in his crease to prevent a pass to Rust, who'd shoved his way through to position himself for precisely that.
Saved his best, though, for last:
That's the first few ticks of overtime. The Flyers' Sean Couturier and Ivan Provorov have command of the puck ... until Rust decides that they don't.
"A turnover, right there," Alain Vigneault, Philadelphia's coach would lament, "and we never touched the puck again."
Nope. And Rust made sure of it. Because even after his elegant flip to himself didn't finish as he'd hoped, clipping the pipe behind Elliott, he coolly skated to the corner to retain possession, pushed back to Malkin for a moment, got it right back and ... basically went for a calculated skate:
This was the Phil thing, right?
When things aren't all that inviting inside the attacking zone, don't force anything. Just take a twirl.
"Yeah, puck possession's just so important in overtime," Rust replied when I invoked the Phil thing. "Anytime you can look for some offense, then take it out and try to get some fresh guys on the ice, and then try to take advantage of their tired guys, I think that gives us the best opportunity to get higher-quality chances."
OK, now go back up and watch the Phil thing again. Watch Rust's right hand come off his shaft in motioning toward the home bench, which, not coincidentally, is the one nearest the Philadelphia zone.
Right. He's urging the Penguins to get fresh guys on the ice, even as he's holding the puck to ensure the Flyers can't escape. It's like playing prison warden.
So sure enough, not long after Justin Schultz changes for Letang, and Malkin changes for Crosby, Rust passes the baton to Crosby -- no, not the one Crosby passed to Giroux all those years ago -- then takes himself off for Jared McCann. While none of the three Flyers who opened overtime -- Couturier, Provorov and Jakub Voracek -- could afford to budge.
This was game, set and ... all that was missing was match. But that came soon enough in the form of maybe the NHL's greatest conceivable shooter-goaltender mismatch:
Crosby vs. Elliott?
Yeah, that's match.
And did you notice the three Flyers huffing and puffing to keep up?
That's all on Rust.
He's been my team MVP to this stage of the season, having risen up like no one else -- meaning above expectations -- and having done so in a way that best represents what the Mike Sullivan system's all about: Do things the right way, then get rewarded for them.
"That's the foundation of my game," Rust said. "Hard work and using my skating to cause turnovers and make plays from there."
"He's played like that since he got here, from Day 1," Crosby essentially echoed. "His speed and his work ethic allow him to make those plays, but his all-around game is unbelievable. When he's making plays like that, guys are gonna benefit. Him, too."
Sullivan took that a step further when I broached the subject.
"You know, I think Rusty's really evolved in his time as a Pittsburgh Penguin," he began. "He's always been a conscientious player on the defensive side, but I think his offensive game has grown to another level. He's always shown an ability to finish. He's scored big goals for us over the years, especially when the stakes were high. But I see him now with his poise with the puck, his puck protection, his vision ... his panic threshold is really high right now. He hangs onto pucks, and that's helped his total game offensively."
Slight pause. Because there was no way this coach wasn't going to swing back to the defensive side.
"His overall 200-foot game, I think, is the best it's been since he's been a Pittsburgh Penguin. And he's a big reason this team's had some of the success that it's had."
Anyone care to argue?
Here's betting those three Flyers wouldn't. Assuming they could unstick their tongues from the ice, anyway.
PHOTO GALLERY
Penguins vs. Flyers, Jan. 31, 2020, PPG Paints Arena. - GETTY
