The Penguins aren't exactly strangers to Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren taking cheap shots against them.
The 6-foot, 190-pound defender was the one who delivered an elbow to the head of Rickard Rakell in Game 1 of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs. The hit kept Rakell out of the lineup with a concussion until Game 7.
During the Penguins' 3-2 victory over the Rangers on Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena, Lindgren delivered a nasty cross-check to Bryan Rust just a split-second after Rust deflected a long-distance shot past Igor Shesterkin to give the Penguins a 2-1 lead with only 13 seconds remaining in the second period.
Rust, taking exception to the cross-check, immediately motioned toward Lindgren once he regained his footing, but Kasperi Kapanen swooped in and held him back from doing so in one of the funnier goal celebrations you'll see.
As Kapanen bear-hugged Rust from behind, Rust let out an emphatic "WOO!" right in Lindgren's direction.
The sequence:
One more time from a different angle:
"Felt nice," Rust said of scoring, after the game. "If you couldn’t tell, I was a little bit upset in the moment, but also very excited in the moment because I scored. Hockey’s a game of emotions and they run high sometimes."
Rust was so fired up that he didn't even notice that Kapanen came in and held him back until he got back to the bench and saw another look at what happened.
"That was awesome," Rust said of Kapanen's assist that won't show up on the scoresheet. "I didn’t really realize it until I saw the replay, but that was pretty cool."
That kind of energy and emotion was sorely lacking from the Penguins in the first half of the game. Mike Sullivan knows that it's vital for his club to be emotionally engaged for them to reach another gear, especially against a division rival.
"One of the things I said to the players is that in the absence of emotion, it’s hard to be at your best in this game," Sullivan said. "We have to be invested emotionally first. And when we are, we’re a good hockey team, we’re a competitive hockey team."
Once Evgeni Malkin scored a power-play goal to get the Penguins on the board in the second, it was like the entire team flipped a switch. No more evidence is needed than Rust's reaction to Lindgren.
While Jason Zucker was happy that his longtime buddy found the back of the net, he wasn't impressed with the tough guy act.
"Yeah, I’m not sure what Rusty was doing there," Zucker said, peering to his right at Rust. "Guy’s fought his pillow about seven times in his career and that’s about it, so it was good to see him get that goal."
