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Pittsburgh Penguins right wing Bryan Rust (17) celebrates with center Sidney Crosby (87) and left wing Conor Sheary (43) after scoring a goal against the San Jose Sharks in the first period game one of the 2016 Stanley Cup Final at Consol Energy Center.Charles LeClaire

Bryan Rust and Conor Sheary started their season with a victory. It came in Providence, R.I., with the Pittsburgh Penguins' top minor league team, in front of 9,230 fans.

But on Monday night, they came through on the biggest stage in hockey: the Stanley Cup final. The two rookies scored the Penguins' first two goals, leading them to a 3-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks in Game 1.

"These guys are good hockey players," said Penguins Coach Mike Sullivan, who started the season as Rust and Sheary's coach in the minors. "They add another element to our team: the energy that they bring, the enthusiasm that they bring to the rink. They've stepped up and made some big plays for us."

Game 2 is here Wednesday night.

As remarkable as it may seem for rookies to score the opening two goals in a Stanley Cup final, it has happened before. Howie Morenz of the Montreal Canadiens scored the first two goals of the 1924 Cup final.

At 24, Rust is a late bloomer by NHL standards. He had only five career goals in 55 NHL regular-season games, 14 of which came in 2014-15. But he has made his mark in the playoffs, skating on the second line with Chris Kunitz and Evgeni Malkin. In Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final, he scored Pittsburgh's only goals in a 2-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning, which sent the Penguins to the championship round.

On Monday night, Rust produced the Penguins' first goal when he picked up a loose puck after a blocked shot and tapped it toward the net. Seconds later, a sea of yellow in the stands rose like a tidal wave. Malkin, who has had hundreds of goals in his 10-year NHL career, leapt on Rust's back looking happier than if he had scored himself.

"We have a nice chemistry of veteran players and young guys here that complement one another," Sullivan said. "What I really like about this group is that they play for each other."

Rust has six goals in these playoffs, his first, a record for a Penguins rookie in one postseason.

Sixty-two seconds after Rust scored, Sheary accepted a perfectly placed cross-ice pass from Sidney Crosby, the superstar who centres Pittsburgh's first line. Sheary then fired a shot to the top left corner of the net, beating San Jose goaltender Martin Jones.

"They've gotten better and better," Crosby said of Rust and Sheary's first postseason. "Those two guys deserve a lot of credit."

Sheary's goal was scored against San Jose's vaunted shutdown defensive pair: Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Justin Braun, who have all but silenced every top line they have played against this postseason. They frustrated Tyler Toffoli of the Los Angeles Kings, Filip Forsberg of the Nashville Predators and Vladimir Tarasenko of the St. Louis Blues. Those three elite goal scorers had three goals combined against San Jose.

But Sheary, who has played in only 44 regular-season games, took less than 14 minutes to score against Vlasic and Braun. In his usual way, Sheary was nonchalant about his goal.

"You play in the moment as much as you can," Sheary, 23, said. "It's the same ice surface. I'm just going out and playing hard every game. The fact that it was on this elevated scale was pretty cool, but it's just another goal for me."

Rust has been among Pittsburgh's hottest players, scoring in the past three games. But the Penguins may now be without him. In the third period, he was decked from a hit to the head by the Sharks' Patrick Marleau, who received a minor penalty. Rust went to the locker room, returned to the game for one shift and then left for good. Rust was not made available to reporters Monday night.

Sullivan called Rust's ailment an "upper-body injury" and said his status would be evaluated each day.

After the game, Marleau defended his actions.

"I kept my shoulder in and elbow in and everything in," Marleau said, dismissing the suggestion he had been aiming for Rust's head.

The NHL announced Tuesday morning that Marleau would not have a hearing with the Department of Player Safety and that the hit did not warrant a suspension.

Whatever Rust's condition, he and Sheary have helped put the Penguins three victories away from capturing the Stanley Cup. Since the league switched to a best-of-seven format for the final in 1939, the team that takes the opening game has ended up hoisting the Stanley Cup nearly 80 per cent of the time.

"We didn't want to go through a feeling-out process," Sullivan said. "We wanted to try to go out and dictate the terms right away."

Rust and Sheary did just that.

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