In the worst slump of his career at the worst possible time. What will it take to wake up Rick Nash?
The New York Rangers’ equipment attendant slowly wheels the rack of game jerseys into the visitors’ dressing room at Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., and diligently begins making his way around the cramped space, hanging up the jerseys in their stalls. He places captain Ryan Callahan’s No. 24 in a locker along the right wall, and six-foot-seven behemoth Brian Boyle’s No. 22 not far away. In a large stall near the door, he places a comically large jersey bearing No. 30 for Henrik Lundqvist, who gets the cozy corner locker because he is the starting goaltender and a living legend. Then he returns to the rack and, like a magician with a cache of handkerchiefs up his sleeve, withdraws jersey after jersey bearing Rick Nash’s No. 61. He grabs three in all and hangs them in Nash’s stall. “Yeah, Rick’s a sweater,” the attendant admits. “He goes through a jersey every period.”
Perhaps the team should also offer that service to the members of its front office, who surely perspired through a Hugo Boss catalogue of suits while watching this nothing-comes-easy Rangers team during a tense first-round series with the Capitals. New York prevailed—barely—mostly thanks to Lundqvist’s heroics and a defensive unit that completely shut down Hart Trophy candidate Alex Ovechkin.
The thing is, the Rangers are supposed to be more potent than this. Nash was brought to Broadway as part of a five-player deal last summer, at a cap hit of $7.8 million for this season and each of the next five, to generate offence. That plan went well enough during the regular season—Nash had 42 points in 44 games—but so far it’s failed to bear fruit in the playoffs. He had just two assists in the Rangers’ first-round victory over the Capitals, drawing the ire of media and fans alike.
Nash’s struggles have bewildered the Rangers, not just due to the inconvenient timing, but because the 28-year-old was supposed to be recession-proof. Since 2004, Nash has only slumped three times: a seven-game pointless streak in 2012, a six-game drought in 2007 and a stretch of eight games with just one point in 2006. That’s it. Otherwise, he’s been one of the game’s most reliable producers. Over the first nine seasons of his career, playing for mostly hapless teams in Columbus, Nash scored 30 goals or more seven times. His points-per-game average this season was his highest in four years and he led the Rangers with 21 goals in 44 games.
He was everything the Rangers thought he would be, until he wasn’t. And while it’s one thing to slump in Columbus, it’s a completely different slice of pie to hit a rough patch in New York City, especially in the playoffs. That’s why you could practically feel the tension—a tight, stiffening uneasiness—simmering just below surface level as Nash faced the press after game five of the Capitals series, his latest scoreless effort in which he mustered just two shots despite being on the ice for a third of the game. “I had some chances to make something happen,” Nash said, squinting against the television lights. “But it’s just not working right now.”
That’s the thing about New York. You can’t shrink from the relentless attention swell; you can’t disappear when things aren’t going your way. Playing in a major market, for a team built to win, in front of a fan base whose extreme enthusiasm could easily be diagnosed as an intense form of mania—there is nowhere to hide. But Nash wanted this. He asked for a trade from Columbus and controlled a very selective list of markets he would be willing to go to. Potential winners, all of them; he wanted to play for the Cup, too. Nash entered this season, his 10th in the league, with exactly four playoff games under his belt, all of them losses in 2009. If he stayed in Ohio, he might have never reached double-digits.
But he likely didn’t think it would go this way. It’s hard to gauge what exactly is troubling Nash at this most inopportune moment. You can ask him about it, but he’ll just tell you the Capitals’ defence was collapsing on him, taking away the space he requires to create scoring chances. That’s true, but it’s more or less the same treatment he receives every game of the year as one of the most prolific scoring threats in the league. It’s not like teams just happily let him run amok during the regular season.
You could also ask Nash’s coach about his struggles. But if you are at all familiar with John Tortorella and his legendary patience level, which ranges somewhere between unfed infant and displeased diva, you probably know that’s not a fantastic idea. “I’m not gonna talk about guys that are fighting it,” Tortorella barked when asked what Nash needed to do to break out of his slump. “It doesn’t do anybody any good. They’re fair questions but I don’t want to answer them. That’s fair too, is it not?”
Sorry we asked. Of course, Tortorella also isn’t providing an answer because there isn’t one. As infuriating as it must be to those invested in the team, oftentimes there isn’t a neat and tidy solution to every problem the universe presents. It’s a slump; these things happen. The NHL playoffs are such a dangerously small sample of a player’s abilities and are so fiercely magnified by their importance that these things tend to become bigger issues than they really are. Like a car accident or a bad date, what is most likely at play here is poor timing and bad luck. That’s the universe for you.
And Rangers fans need not begin occupying Eighth Avenue. Despite the lack of offensive production, Nash was more effective than it seemed against the Capitals. After all, it was Nash who fired a hard, low pass from the sideboards to the front of the net late in game three, allowing Derek Stepan to simply wave his stick at the puck and direct it past Capitals goalie Braden Holtby for the game-winner. And it was also Nash who stood tall in front of Holtby in the second period of game six, screening the goaltender long enough for Derick Brassard to sneak a point shot past him for the only goal of the game.
And even away from the puck, when he wasn’t carrying it confidently into the offensive zone, he was making divets in the ice as he worked furiously to back-check on defence—something that can’t be said for Ovechkin, the Capitals star who struggled similarly.
Still, the failure to produce ate at Nash during the series, and although he kept a calm face for the cameras, you could tell he was extremely uncomfortable with his play. “I don’t know if it’s frustration,” Nash said, “but it’s not a good feeling when you can’t help your team win.”
Undeniably, Nash is too talented, too big and too creative to be this offensively muted for much longer. If this were the regular season, few would be panicking over a mere seven-game lapse. Eventually, something is going to give. But until then, the Rangers, and their manic fans, will have to just sweat it out.
This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine. Subscribe here.
