NHL.com fantasy rank: 105<\/p>\n
Rust, who frequently rounds out Pittsburgh’s top line with Crosby and Rakell when healthy, is another valuable category coverage player for standard fantasy leagues; he has had a career-high 65 points in each of the past two seasons, and is one of 17 players over those two seasons combined to average 0.40 goals per game (0.42), 0.90 points per game (0.91), 2.60 shots on goal per game (2.62) and 0.60 hits per game (0.68).<\/p>\n
Rust, who quietly leads Pittsburgh in even-strength goals over the past two seasons combined (46), is another Penguins target outside the fantasy top 100 overall with a ceiling of finishing in the top 50.<\/p>\n
NHL.com point projection: 61<\/p>\n
NHL.com fantasy rank: 129<\/p>\n
Malkin, who turned 40 years old on July 31, is coming off a bounce-back season in which he posted his highest points-per-game average (1.09; 61 in 56 games) since 2019-20 (1.35) and has averaged at least a point per game in 16 of his 20 NHL seasons. A fixture on the first power play with Crosby and Karlsson, Malkin finished with at least 20 power-play points (22 last season) for the 15th time in his NHL career. Malkin is another potential fantasy draft bargain from Pittsburgh, especially given his instant chemistry with breakout wing Egor Chinakhov<\/a>\u00a0(had 18 goals, 36 points in 43 games after trade to Pittsburgh last season).<\/p>\n NHL.com point projection: 69<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Other PIT players on preseason draft lists:<\/p>\n Breakout candidates: Egor Chinakhov, F (point projection: 62); Ben Kindel<\/a>, F (point projection: 45)<\/p>\n Sleeper candidate: Arturs Silovs<\/a>, G (win projection: 23)<\/p>\n Rookie to watch: Sergei Murashov<\/a>, G (win projection: 17)<\/p>\n Bounce-back candidate: Andrei Kuzmenko<\/a>, F (point projection: 44)<\/p>\n Category coverage player: Justin Brazeau<\/a>, F (point projection: 42)<\/p>\n Deep sleepers: Tommy Novak<\/a>, F (point projection: 41); Nicholas Robertson<\/a>,\u00a0F (point projection: 40); Samuel Girard<\/a>, D (point projection: 30)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHL.com fantasy rank: 105 Rust, who frequently rounds out Pittsburgh’s top line with Crosby and Rakell when healthy,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-867191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}