Harrison Brunicke sent to juniors, Bryan Rust on injured reserve

An eventful practice in Pittsburgh on the eve of the regular season

The Pittsburgh Penguins are missing their best winger only two days away from the regular season. Bryan Rust (injured in an Oct 1 preseason game) was not on the ice today.

Coach Mike Sullivan said Rust was “day-to-day with a lower-body injury right now. He’s trying to manage through it” back on Thursday, but Rust hasn’t seen the ice since then.

Here’s how the lines looked in practice.

Rust’s absence could be Rutger McGroarty’s gain. If the Pens were fully healthy, there’s a good chance a winger from the first line would bump down to the third and push McGroarty out to Wilkes-Barre. As it stands now, it looks like he will get the opportunity to start the season in the NHL. From there, a spot in the lineup could be bad news for a Jesse Puljujarvi or Cody Glass, if McGroarty plays well enough to stay one of those players might get bumped out when Rust is back from his presumably minor injury.

The other big piece of news is that Harrison Brunicke was sent back to his junior team following NHL practice.

Sullivan gave comment on this:

And thus ends the first serious attempt for an 18-year old to make the Pens’ roster since Daniel Sprong back in 2015 (who would play 18 games and then be sent back to juniors himself).

Brunicke impressed and his development over the past few months has been astounding, but such a young and unseasoned player wasn’t quite ready for the leap into the NHL regular season. Shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, it was telling enough that Brunicke was kept around for one more practice today. The team wanted to squeeze in all the work and instruction they could get out of him and now it’s time to send him back and see how the year goes.

Back in the present day, the focus in Pittsburgh will turn to seeing if Rust can answer the bell and dress for opening night or whether what the team used today will be their lines on opening night on Wednesday against the Rangers.

Update:

Rust will open the season on injured reserve, through retroactively so and can be activated whenever he is healthy enough to return.

The team also chose the “simple route” from what we outlined yesterday, and opted to achieve salary cap compliance by placing Matt Nieto (expected back in November/December from knee surgery) on long term injured reserve today. That means no paper moves are necessary for Rutger McGroarty and/or Jack St. Ivany, who appear on the team’s official roster to start the season.