Pittsburgh Penguins forward Bryan Rust joined Ninja’s Twitch stream on Wednesday to talk some light trash about the two teams facing off in the Eastern Conference Final.
Rust said he thinks the Penguins would have beaten the New York Rangers if they had grabbed the last playoff spot in the East.
“I think we would have beat the Rangers,” Rust said. “You look across the league and there’s just teams you just do well against and there’s teams you don’t. And I feel like Rangers would have been good for us, if we could have figured out our special teams a little bit.”
The Capitals beat out the Penguins, Detroit Red Wings and Philadelphia Flyers for the final wild-card spot but were quickly swept by the Rangers in Round 1.
Beyond the Penguins, Rust said, “I think any other team that got in would have done better than Washington.”
“But that’s why you play 82 games during the year, you’ve got to be better than them and they found a way to get in,” he added.
On the Panthers, Rust said they “are a good team” but they “are probably my most hated team in the league.” The reason?
“They’ve got some guys on their team that I think are just a bit ratty and they’ve got a lot of them which I think makes them the villains of the league,” he said.
Rust says he doesn’t mind the dirty play after whistles during the playoffs but said the Panthers play that way no matter what time of year it is.
“Just constant cheap shots, you’re skating around after a whistle and you’re just going to give a guy a shot for no reason,” Rust said. “I get it, in the playoffs, it’s all about gamesmanship, you got to do what you got to do. But if you’re doing this thing Game 15, in the middle of January, or whenever and you’re just trying to get through the season, it’s like ‘alright, take it easy.’”
It wasn’t all negativity with Rust in the interview. When asked who his favourite players to watch on the remaining teams are, Rust said he’s been impressed by Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard.
“He’s a stud. He looks like he’s 45 but I think he’s 25,” Rust said. “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 really pay much attention to the Western Conference teams during the year because they’re on too late and we’re not really worried about it.”
Rust also complimented Panthers star Sam Reinhart.
“The subtle things he does to get body position, to get his stick free, to pop at the right times, make the right plays… you can see why he scored 50 goals this year,” Rust said.
Finally, Rust was asked to pick the winners of the two conference final series. Stars in six games and Rangers in seven was his answer.
You can watch the Panthers and Rangers clash in Game 5 on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ Friday night at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT.