Totally agree. He for example pressures guys into mistakes without touching the puck, or he makes a good play in the neutral or D-zone and the puck gets touched by 3 other guys before the goal, so he's not on the scoresheet. But I'd say we also give him a lot more leeway on the board than Rust here, because he's newer.
He's made some bad defensive plays lately that cost us, that never gets mentioned. And I'd say that in the meantime Rust has stabilized his game with some solid performances that don't always get rewarded on the scoresheet. We're still sort of carrying on narratives from earlier in the year when there was a bigger gap between their play.
It's important to note that Rust is shooting 8.3% on the season when his career average is 12.4%.
Rakell on the other hand is 1% above his career average.
These differences sound insignificant, but over the course of 82 games are huge.
So some of the reason we hate on Rust here as much as we do is just bad finishing this year.
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That line's been fine for me. Nothing special but not something that sinks us either.
Before dropping Rust to L3, I still think ZCRak + GMRust should be tried. My fear is that if Rust was dropped to the bottom 6 then we'd get nothing out of him, because of how little O-zone starts they get. He'd be a wasted ghost. We know he's better than what he's shown this year and it's vital to get him going for the playoffs. He's definitely been trending upwards for a while now.