Rick Nash has been the Rangers’ best forward this season just as he has been the team’s best forward over the course of his five seasons on Broadway; the most diligent with and without the puck.
But still, much of the national shine is off Nash, the marquee name who was bought to New York from Columbus in that blockbuster deal in July 2012 to be the big-time, goal-scoring missing link to the Stanley Cup in the aftermath of an upset conference finals defeat to the Devils.
People just don’t expect him to come up with the big goal anymore.
Well, people not named Richard McLaren Nash.
People who weren’t paying attention Wednesday night.
Because after getting off a nine-game schneid with a back-to-the net backhand in New Jersey on Tuesday, Nash scored a spectacular goal to put the Rangers up 2-1 on the Islanders early in the second period of a game the Blueshirts lost, 3-2, at the Garden in a seventh straight defeat at home while dropping to 5-6-2 in their past 13.
It was a display of talent and power as Nash drove in from the right wall and rode off a flailing Thomas Hickey before, while falling down, beating Thomas Greiss. It was Nash, who has the same array of skills as he did as an 18-year-old, first-overall in 2002, filling what he recognizes as his job description.
“I’m here to score goals. I get paid to score goals,” Nash told The Post before the game. “I’m supposed to provide offense. That’s what the team expects of me. That’s what I expect of myself.”
Indeed, Nash regularly grimaces when complimented for his work on the defensive side of the puck or for having imposed his will against opposing defensemen for shifts at a time when the plaudits follow games in which he has been held off the sheet.
“Because that’s not good enough,” said this unfailingly pleasant man and selfless teammate. “I take pride in my defensive game and in being a complete player, but I know why I’m here and that’s not it.”
Nash has scored 20 goals in 61 games, missing 11 because of separate but linked groin injuries plus another with an undisclosed issue.
The initial groin injury struck at the worst time, on Dec. 6 in Brooklyn, in the midst of a stretch in which he had been dominant. He picked up where he left off upon a rapid return after four games in street clothes, but two goals in three games later, he was down again.
And here we are, 30 games and seven goals later, on pace to his fewest goals in a 65-game-plus season since he got 17 as a rookie.
“I know scoring is down around the league; what, Sid [Crosby] is the only guy with 40 [41]? It’s hard to score,” said Nash, who drew three tripping penalties in this one. “But it tears at me. It frustrates me. It frustrates me, no end.”
Nash scored 40 and 42 in Columbus. Two years ago, he carried the Presidents’ Trophy-bound Rangers through the first five months of the season before finishing third in the NHL with 42 goals behind Alex Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos. It still is there; it still is in him.
“Getting to the inside,” is the mantra from No. 61 and the thing is, he is getting to the inside, using spin moves against defenders, doing much of his best work with his back to the net much like a big man posting up in the blocks. But he hadn’t been finishing.
The burden of proof is not on Nash alone as the Rangers attempt break out of this malaise. The Blueshirts need much more from centers Derek Stepan and Mika Zibanejad, better from a suddenly struggling Ryan McDonagh and clearly much better from a penalty-kill unit that has been disastrously inferior.
But there is a burden on Nash just as surely as there is a bull’s-eye on him in response to his underwhelming career tournament résumé, which reveals 12 goals in 65 games. And the heaviest burden on Nash is the one he places on himself.
“I can’t say whether people are hard on me or not, but I know that I’m hard on myself. I’m hardest on myself,” Nash said. “I’m expected to score goals. I’m expected to put up numbers.
“That’s my job. That’s why I’m here.”