Rust injured in Penguins’ loss to Anaheim

Pittsburgh Penguins forward Bryan Rust suffered an undisclosed injury and prematurely exited a 5-1 loss to the Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. on Thursday.

Aside from a posting on one of the team’s social media accounts acknowledging the ailment, there was no substantive word on Rust’s status. He did not record a shift beyond the 17:43 mark of the second period.

A fixture on the team’s top line and top power-play unit, Rust is the Penguins’ third-leading scorer with 38 points (19 goals, 19 assists) in 43 games this season.

“Plays a lot of important minutes and every situation,” Penguins forward Sidney Crosby said to reporters in Anaheim via audio provided by the team’s media relations staff. “Hopefully, he’s OK.”

Thursday’s loss came on the heels of a 5-1 win against the Los Angeles Kings on Monday. The Penguins are 2-2 thus far on their season-long seven-game road trip.

“Playing the game that we played in (Los Angeles) was a good example of how we need to play the game,” Crosby said. “It doesn’t make it easy. It’s tough to play that way, but we’ve got to find a way to do that more consistently.”

The scoring in Thursday’s entanglement opened 9:28 into regulation via forward Mason McTavish’s eighth goal of 2024-25.

Ducks forward Robby Fabbri beat Penguins rookie defenseman Owen Pickering to a loose puck on the Penguins’ right half-wall and poked it to the near point where Ducks defenseman Jacob Trouba stepped up and blasted a one-timer. Goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic made the initial save and allowed a rebound to the right of the crease as Penguins defenseman P.O Joseph tumbled to the ice while battling with McTavish. Fabbri scurried in from the right circle and lifted a wrister off the rebound that a scrambling Nedeljkovic denied. Another rebound sat still just to the right of the crease where an opportunistic McTavish cashed in with an easy wrister on a mostly vacant cage. Fabbri and Trouba had assists.

The Ducks went up by two at the last minute of the opening period – almost literally – when forward Alex Killorn collected his ninth goal at the 19:01 mark.

From below his defensive blue line, Ducks rookie forward Drew Helleson dished a pass to the left wing intended for Killorn. Joseph broke up the sequence momentarily with a stick check but Killorn was able to calm the puck and gain the Penguins’ zone past a spinning Joseph. While former Ducks defenseman Marcus Pettersson hustled back to present some resistance, Killorn was able to lift a wrister from below the left dot and beat Nedeljkovic’s left shoulder on the far side. Helleson and forward Trevor Zegras tallied assists.

Penguins forward Michael Bunting’s 14th goal came during a power-play sequence at 5:32 of the second period.

Off some perimeter passing in the Ducks’ zone, Penguins forward Rickard Rakell and Rust played hot potato with the puck a bit to the left of the cage before Rust dished a sharp feed through the crease between Ducks goaltender John Gibson and defenseman Brian Dumoulin. Kneeling to the right of the blue paint, Bunting whacked in a forehand shot off of Gibson’s left skate and into the net. Rust and Rakell recorded assists.

McTavish struck again at 2:06 of the third period.

Pushing the puck up from the neutral zone, Dumoulin gained the center red line and fired a dump-in to the Penguins’ right corner, presumably with the intention of simply allowing his team to make a change at the bench. But the puck had other ideas and took an odd carom to the upper right hashmark. McTavish swooped in, took the puck on his backhand and tucked a forehand shot by Nedeljkovic’s left skate as Penguins forward Kevin Hayes arrived on a tardy backcheck. Assists went to Dumoulin and Troy Terry.

The Ducks went up by a field goal at 6:52 of the third frame when forward Frank Vatrano scored his 13th goal.

From his own left circle, Terry mailed a cross-ice stretch pass to linemate Ryan Strome, allowing him to enter the Penguins’ zone on the left wing. As Penguins defenseman Erik Karlsson applied minimal resistance, forward Evgeni Malkin lost track of Vatrano, who was wide open in the right circle. Accepting a feed from Strome, Vatrano walked in and lifted a wrister by Nedeljkovic’s blocker. Strome and Terry registered assists.

Killorn capped the scoring at 18:00 of the third with a goal on an empty net. Trouba and forward Isac Lundestrom had assists.

Nedeljkovic’s record fell to 9-9-4 after he made 29 saves on 33 shots.

“Anybody can beat anybody on any given night and the best teams in the league are the ones that bring it every single night,” Nedeljkovic said to reporters in Anaheim. “You have to earn your two points every single night.”

Gibson, a native of Whitehall, stopped 31 of 33 shots and boosted his mark to 9-82.

Notes:

• Penguins forward Blake Lizotte was scratched due to an illness, according to one of the team’s social media accounts.

• Rakell returned to the Penguins’ lineup after missing one game to attend to a personal matter.

• Penguins defensemen Ryan Graves and Ryan Shea were healthy scratches. Shea has been scratched for the past 11 games and has not dressed since a 4-2 road loss to the Red Wings on Dec. 31.

• Dumoulin’s assist was his first in four career games against the Penguins. The left-handed defenseman spent parts of 10 seasons with the Penguins and was a key component of the franchise’s Stanley Cup championships in 2016 and 2017.