“I wasn’t a good skater,” Bryan said, “but I could score goals.”Īt 16, while playing midget hockey for HoneyBaked Hockey Club, Bryan hoped to join the U.S. Bryan never was the biggest, fastest, strongest or most talented skater, at any level, but he had impeccable instincts around the net. Initially, Matt was more naturally skilled and made an immediate impact on the ice. For the rest of his childhood, Bryan would follow one step behind Matt as he climbed the hockey ladder, all the way to the pros. “It all started with me wanting to do everything that Matt did,” Bryan said. That’s the way it always was with the two of them. When their parents, Steve and Betsy, encouraged Matt - who is three years older than Bryan - to try ice hockey, well, Bryan wanted to try, too. “That’s how we both fell into the game,” Matt said. It’s the role Rust has had his whole life. A former coach called him “a perfect complementary player,” which reads to Rust as an incredible compliment. On and off the ice, Rust prefers a low profile. His idea of a good time is a night at home playing Settlers of Catan - in person or online - with his wife, Kelsey, brother, Matt, and teammates. Rust has the same cell phone number he had in high school. He’s a power-play regular, a penalty killer, a clutch playoff performer with two Stanley Cup rings.Īnd yet, Rust doesn’t stand out on the star-powered Penguins roster.
Settled in as Evgeni Malkin’s right-hand man on the second line, Rust was the Penguins’ leading scorer last year, with 27 goals in a pandemic-shortened, injury-riddled regular season. Today, as the Penguins open the 2020-21 season in Philadelphia, Rust, 28, has established himself as one of the most important players on the roster. It actually was minus-1, though the Penguins fell behind by four goals early and lost either way. In Rust’s memory, he was a minus-4 and deserved worse. I can do whatever I want.’ It didn’t work out that way. “I was making horrible plays all over the ice. “I absolutely laid a goose egg,” Rust recalled this week, laughing. Before the game, Rust had a feeling he never would forget this night. Now that Rust had arrived in the NHL, this was his shot to show he belonged. They were in a holiday tournament near Tampa and bought tickets to watch Rust, who had graduated seven months prior and signed with the Penguins. Rust remembers it as the first time he skated on the Penguins’ top line, alongside Crosby and Chris Kunitz - a couple of Stanley Cup champions Rust had played with only in video games.įrom ice level, Rust could hear shouts from the second level, where his former Notre Dame coaches and teammates were seated.
You may remember this night, in the middle of the Penguins’ mumps outbreak in December 2014, when 13 players were ill or injured and defenseman Taylor Chorney filled in as a fourth-line winger.
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