Bryan Rust takes blame for Penguins loss: 'I've got to get that puck out of the zone'

Bryan Rust was the last player to get out of his gear and leave the locker room. After speaking with the media, he sat at his stall, staring into emptiness.

Probably replaying the game’s pivotal play, if not the entire game itself.

Rust’s performance during the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 2-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Monday night was emblematic of the team on the whole. He did a lot right, but not enough to push the club to victory.

The Penguins lost despite outshooting Ottawa 49-21. Struggling goalie Tristan Jarry made some quality saves during times when he was tested. The Penguins won 58% of the faceoffs and established a 65% Corsi advantage (via Natural Stat Trick).

Rust uncorked six of those shots on goal. He attempted five more. After the loss, head coach Mike Sullivan praised him for the work he did to control zone time when paired with Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel. Rust also dished out six hits and absorbed two blocked shots.

But it was one of those blocked shots that ended up leading to Ottawa’s game-winning goal.

With the game tied 1-1 late in the third, the Penguins were on a penalty kill. Rust blocked a shot from Jake Sanderson. Stung by the shot, Rust couldn’t clear the zone despite the puck sitting on the backhand of his blade.

With the possession remaining in the Penguins end, Drake Batherson scored what would end up being the game-winning goal for Ottawa with just over two minutes remaining.

Drake Batherson directs home Tkachuk's nifty dish on the power play to put the Senators back into the lead!#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/mJnD7uy9MW

— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights (@HockeyDaily365) March 21, 2023

“I don’t care if my arm is falling off, I’ve got to got that puck out of the zone and down the ice,” Rust said after the loss.

Not only was the shot block painful for Rust, it was a painful defeat for the Penguins collectively.

It was the team’s fourth loss in a row. That result, coupled with a Florida Panthers (79 points) victory in Detroit, pushed the Penguins (78 points) out of a playoff spot and into ninth place in the Eastern Conference, a point behind the Panthers in the race for the conference’s second wild-card berth.

While Rust was carrying the defeat on his shoulders, Jarry tried to alleviate the blame.

“It takes a lot of guts to block shots in this league,” Jarry said. “When a guy gets all of it like (Sanderson) did, and hits (Rust) square in his arm, it’s tough. You are thinking about trying to get in front of it, not where the puck is going after. You are trying to regroup and find yourself.”

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Similarly, Sullivan chose to accentuate many of the good things that the Penguins did in the game. But so dominant were the Penguins, that Sullivan said his team could’ve thrown even more pucks at goalie Dylan Ferguson. It was his first NHL start and first appearance in the league in more than five years, and he made 48 saves en route to victory.

Sullivan believed that opportunities existed to try even more.

“We were talking about it on the bench, just getting someone at the the blue paint. Just try to make the sight lines difficult. Maybe if we get people there, it’ll encourage us to shoot the puck. It’s not like we didn’t shoot it. We had almost 50 shots. But we had opportunities to shoot it more,” Sullivan said.

Suggesting that the blame can always be spread around has been an all-too-familiar theme for Sullivan lately. He emphatically tried to tamp down media criticism of Jeff Carter and Brian Dumoulin following the team’s 6-0 loss to the New York Rangers on Sunday.

But Sullivan’s biggest problem is that he is 100% correct. There is plenty of blame to go around, and it’s shifting from night to night.

Sometimes the goaltending hasn’t been good enough. Now the Penguins are in a rut of three games where they have managed a total of just three goals.

Sometimes it’s been the power play. Now, in each of the last two games, failed clears on the penalty kill late in periods have been an issue. Dumoulin had one of those Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.

Sometimes it’s been a lack of support from the bottom of the roster. Now the stars at the top of the depth chart have gone cold of late too. Sidney Crosby hasn’t scored in five games. Evgeni Malkin has just one goal in March.

Rust may want to wear the bullseye for what happened at the end of that contest Monday night. But the unfortunate trend for the Penguins is that someone else is very likely to take the onus off his shoulders for the next game.

With that next game being Wednesday night in Denver against the red-hot defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche, go ahead and take your pick as to which player that may be.