Bryan Rust said that he would have liked to "be all pissed off" when the Penguins' season ended, turned hockey off on his TV, and stopped watching until next season.
But he likes watching the game too much -- "Here I am every night, watching playoff hockey and staying up later than I want to," Rust said on Wednesday. "Grinding it out."
Rust on Wednesday made an appearance on Twitch streamer Ninja's Fortnite game stream and shared some thoughts on his own season and the teams left in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Ninja, whose real name is Richard Blevins, has the most-followed Twitch channel with over 19 million subscribers and occasionally has celebrities join his streams like JuJu Smith-Schuster and rappers Drake and Travis Scott. Rust himself is a fan of video game streams, and has made appearances on them in the past.
When Rust joined the stream, one of Ninja's cohosts offered his condolences for the Penguins failure to make the playoffs and asked Rust if he thought the Penguins would have at least won a game in what would have been their opening round series against the Rangers. The Capitals beat out the Penguins and Red Wings for that final wild card spot and were swept in four games by the Rangers in the first round.
"I think we would have beat the Rangers," Rust said. "Oh yeah. It would depend on a couple of factors, but I think we would have beat them. It's a matchup. You look across the league and there's just teams you do well against, and teams you don't. I feel like the Rangers would have been good for us if we could have figured out our penalty-kill against their power play, our special teams. If we could have figured out our special teams, we would have had a chance. Because our power play was absolute trash all year."
The Penguins went 1-2 in the regular season against the Rangers -- a 1-0 loss at home in November, a 7-4 loss at home in March, and then a 5-2 win in New York at the start of April in the middle of the Penguins' last long road trip. That win over the Rangers was the start of the real turnaround that started the late push for a playoff spot that ultimately fell just short.
Rust also said that he thinks the Red Wings could have at least won a game against the Rangers had they made it in as the final wild card team instead, then added, "I think any other team that would have got in would have done better than Washington."
The Rangers are currently 2-2 in their Eastern Conference Final matchup with the Panthers.
"The Panthers are a good team," Rust said. "That's probably my most hated team in the league. They're good. They've got some guys on their team that are a bit ratty, and they've got a lot of them. It makes them the villains of the league."
Asked to define what he meant by "ratty," Rust said, "Just constant cheap shots. You're skating around after a whistle, and you're going to give a guy a shot for no reason. Even during the regular season. I get it during the playoffs, it's all about gamesmanship, you gotta do what you gotta do. But if you're doing this Game 15, in the middle of January or whenever, it's like, alright. Take it easy."
Rust predicted that the Rangers come out of the Eastern Conference Final in seven games, and the Stars win in the Western Conference Final in six games. He picked the Stars to win the Cup.
Rust said that his favorite player to watch of those remaining in the playoffs is Connor McDavid -- "It's hard to argue against McDavid," he said. "Every time he touches the puck, he's just going to do something crazy with it."
After McDavid, Rust said he likes to watch Evan Bouchard on Edmonton's blue line -- "He's a stud. He looks like he's 45, but I think he's 25. He does some really cool things out there. I didn't really know how good he was until watching the playoffs, because we don't pay much attention to the Western Conference teams during the year because they're on too late. We're not really worried about it."
In the Eastern Conference, Rust said he likes watching Sam Reinhart -- "Unfortunately, yes, the Panthers guy," he said. "The subtle things he does as a hockey player to get body positioning, get his stick free, pop at the right times, make the right plays, all the timing stuff, you can nitpick that and see why he scored 50-whatever goals this year."
Rust was asked specifically about the Rangers' Mika Zibanejad -- "He's really good," Rust said. "I think he looks faster than he is because of his long hair. He's a good skater, but he looks like he's skating four million miles an hour out there with his hair flowing in the wind."
Rust said that he picked the Rangers to come out of the East because of his "best friend" -- Chad Ruhwedel, who is currently the Rangers' seventh defenseman.
Rust was asked a two-parter about his captain -- Is Sidney Crosby still a top-10 player in the league, and how much longer can he be a top-10 player in the league if so?
"I think so, yes," Rust said. "I think if you look at his production this year, and what could have been if we had a good power play -- I think we were 31st in the league in power play, which is ass. I think he would have had 20 more points probably, if not more. He just does everything out there. He's just a physical freak at almost 37 now. I don't know how much longer he can do it, he just keeps doing it. Everyone thinks, 'Oh, he's going to drop off sooner or later, he's going to fall off, he's not going to do it again.' And all of the sudden, here he is, doing it again. It wouldn't surprise me if 40's the age where you start to see something, or if he's just going to quit. As soon as guys that good start to see themselves not be the best anymore, I don't know if they can take it. Some of those guys just quit."
Rust said since the Penguins' season ended, he and his family took a couple of weeks off for vacation and now he's back in town and working out and in the process of moving houses -- presumably into Jake Guentzel's old home after Rust and his wife Kelsey bought it from Guentzel and his wife Natalie recently.
Looking ahead to next season, Rust said his primary goal is to "stay healthy."
"I missed 20 games this year, so that's first and foremost," Rust said. "Two, it helps when you're playing with (Sidney Crosby). That's always a guy who is fun to play with and is going to help out your game. Other than that, I just come from the mentality of don't be satisfied with it. I was a fourth-line grinder for awhile, I was never a highly-touted prospect. I just kept that mentality. Even though I'm 32 and have played for 10 years now, hopefully keep that going."
