PITTSBURGH -- Bryan Rust was back on the ice Wednesday morning, and back in front of reporters shortly thereafter.
So, will he be back in the lineup for Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final?
"[I’m] just seeing how things go, how I feel after the skate and how I feel moving through the afternoon,” Rust said, alluding to the upper-body injury suffered on the controversial Patrick Marleau hit in Game 1.
“So far so good.”
Rust’s health was also one of the questions posed to Pens head coach Mike Sullivan at today’s presser.
“Bryan obviously skated this morning, and he’s a gametime decision,” Sullivan said, confirming the obvious.
There’s been a lot of attention paid to Rust, a 24-year-old rookie who spent a chunk of the year in AHL Wilkes-Barre.
Somewhere in there is Bryan Rust, being asked endlessly if he is playing tonight. pic.twitter.com/NmiYbUeaSO
— James Duthie (@tsnjamesduthie) June 1, 2016
Part of that stems from his goalscoring heroics -- two in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final against Tampa Bay, one in the series opener against the Sharks -- and part of that stems from the first questionable check of the cup final.
Marleau avoided supplemental discipline for the hit. On that, Rust didn’t have much to say.
"[The] hit is what it is, league looked at it, they dealt with it, they did what they thought was right,” he said. “I didn’t really take much time to look at it, or think about it.”