The Pittsburgh Penguins have locked up one of their most notable pending free agents, signing forward Bryan Rust to a six-year contract extension, which carries a $5.125 million cap hit.
Rust is 30 years old and has spent his entire NHL career with the Penguins, playing 424 regular-season games with the team over eight seasons. This season, Rust scored 24 goals and racked up 58 points across 60 games, a pace of 33 goals and 79 points per 82 games. He's coming off a contract that carried a cap hit of $3.5 million and was part of Pittsburgh's Stanley Cup-winning teams in both 2016 and 2017.
Over the last three seasons, Rust has seen a huge increase in his role and production with the Penguins. Through three seasons from 2016-17 until 2018-19, he basically scored at a pace of between 15 and 20 goals per 82 and between 40 and 45 points per 82 in each season. However, from 2019-20 to 2021-22, Rust has scored 73 goals and registered 156 points in 171 games.
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A lot of that has to do with his role, playing up the lineup and seeing a huge increase in ice time. For comparison, from 2016-19, Rust averaged 15:18 per game in ice time. Over the past three seasons, however, he's seen a significant increase in his role, averaging 19:24 per game.
Rust would've been a very attractive free-agent forward for a lot of teams, so Pittsburgh locking him up and keeping him off the open market is a major move.
In terms of the cap hit, the Penguins did great. Given that Rust has posted near one-point-per-game numbers and has shown to be capable of scoring goals at a high rate, locking him down for just $5.125 million is a steal. If he can sustain this pace for a few more years, he'll be providing huge value for Pittsburgh. At that price, even if his production does slip to a degree, he'd likely still be providing more offense than a lot of other players in his pay range. Plus, with the salary cap also due to increase again in the near future, Rust's contract could look like even more of a bargain down the line.
It also helps the Penguins ahead of what's going to be a very tight cap situation. The team still has pending unrestricted free agents in Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, among others, and getting Rust at a low price is only going to help their efforts in keeping them.
One concern regarding the contract, however, is the length of the deal. Rust is already 30 years old and given that he'll be 36 years old by the time the deal expires, it stands to reason that his production will drop off in the final few years of the deal. It can be argued he'd have received a similar contract in free agency, however, so the six years shouldn't be too much of a concern.
The deal also has no trade protection, which is an underrated bonus. It gives the Penguins some flexibility in case they see a decline in production and opt for a reset in the next few years while Rust still has value. On the flip side if they ever needed to try to get the deal off the books, the lack of a no-trade clause also at least gives them the ability to try to find a deal.
Pittsburgh re-signing Rust to this contract does possibly provide a bit of insight as to what the team's direction could be over the next few years. Giving Rust a long-term deal in exchange to get a lower cap hit shows they're valuing the cap space now as opposed to later, which would indicate an intention to contend for a championship throughout the next few seasons. It's not hard to project that Rust is going to provide huge value for his contract now, but the deal may not yield the same kind of returns later down the line.
Regardless, Bryan Rust's new contract is a significant win for the Penguins. They got him at a great cap hit, which should allow the Penguins a bit of extra cap flexibility to keep trying to compete over the coming years. With other key contracts to work out, mainly the likes of Letang and Malkin, getting Rust on a team-friendly deal could enable them to submit improved offers to the veteran duo. Plus, even though the contract is longer than would be ideal given that Rust is 30 years old, the cap will continue to rise and by the time there's a decline in Rust's game, it's likely not a huge issue. Overall, this is a great deal for the Penguins, who are set to benefit from the contract in a big way over the next few years.
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