Brian Burke opened up about the priority list for the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Bryan Rust was at the top.
Going into the summer of 2022, the Pittsburgh Penguins had a number of top tier players heading to free agency.
Many thought the Penguins front office wouldn’t be able to bring back all of Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Bryan Rust, and Rickard Rakell among other names.
Things looked bleak at times, but eventually every key free agent signed a deal to remain in Pittsburgh.
President of hockey operations Brian Burke spoke with the NHL Network about the process of “keeping the band together” and pointed out that there has to be a priority list.
“You assign priorities to your guys,” Burke said. “The top priority was to get Bryan Rust signed. The next guy was Letang.”
Hearing that Rust was made the priority over Letang or Malkin may come as a surprise, but he’s one of the most under appreciated players on the team.
“When you talk about the Penguins you talk about Sid, you talk about Geno,” Burke said. “No one ever talks about Rust, yet he’s been a key player for us.”
Unless you follow the Penguins and pay close attention to them, you wouldn’t understand the kind of impact Rust has on the team.
Burke noted that Rust has been more than just a solid forward for the Penguins, but can play at all ends of the ice.
“He’s on our first power play unit,” Burke said. “He’s an elite penalty killer. His puck recovery is as good as anyone in the league. We felt early on that’s the guy we have to get signed.”
And Penguins management did just that; under a week following being knocked out of the playoffs Rust was re-signed to a six-year contract.
Not only was re-singing Rust a top priority for Burke and general manager Ron Hextall, but this wasn’t the first attempt at a new deal.
“We made some efforts early in the season,” Burke said. “It wasn’t successful and we circled back.”
At the end of the day and no matter the priority list, the Penguins got their guys back and for decent prices.
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