It's not as if Jan Rutta didn't have options.
The puck had just popped back to him at the right point, thanks to a beauty of a backhand bank pass by Evgeni Malkin. The Kings' Arthur Kaliyev began pursuing that pass to pressure Rutta, but again, he had all kinds of ways he could've gone.
Could've banked it right back to Malkin, who'd presented his blade for precisely that. The way Mark Friedman might've.
Or he could've banged it all the way behind the net, the way Chad Ruhwedel might've.