Going to the dirty areas, scoring more goals. (Photo: Adam Hunger/USA Today)

Going to the dirty areas, scoring more goals. (Photo: Adam Hunger/USA Today)

Right now, outside of Anaheim, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more confident and in-form goal scorer than Rick Nash. Other than the Ducks’ Corey Perry, Nash has been the best the league has to offer as October draws to a close but unlike Perry, Nash has had very little (consistent) support to this point of the season.

While they’re different players, the start to the year Nash has enjoyed has been reminiscent of how Jaromir Jagr put his Rangers team on his back and carried them all season long on his way to that historic 54 goal season a few years back. Right now, the Rangers need Nash not only to generate the offense that he has, but to help kick start other players into life. It appeared that this additional part of Nash’s job description started in earnest against the Wild.

Prior to Monday night Mats Zuccarello had struggled mightily – much like his start to last year. Derick Brassard had also been inconsistent but both players came up with huge efforts when lined up with Nash Monday night. Looking back to the start of the year and Chris Kreider has also had his most effective games with Nash as a running mate.

It seems that whoever Nash plays with plays better. This is what Nash is being paid handsomely for. You pay your best players to be just that and you hope they make others around them better. Right now Nash is doing all that and more. He looks re-energized, healthy and perhaps most crucially he looks hungry. He’s going to the net and scoring dirty goals and finding rebounds. He’s not just scoring pretty goals from the outside. Nash looks like the player that the Rangers have sought ever since Jagr left town.

While the Rangers struggle to cope in their own end, while Henrik Lundqvist still finds some consistency and while the Rangers try and find a solution down the middle of their line-up they simply need Rick Nash to kick start other players into life. If last night helps Zuccarello and Brassard find consistency then the Rangers will be a lot better off even while their defense plays catch up.

The Rangers best bet for success right now seems to be the ‘we’ll score more than you’ approach. So having the league’s top goal scorer certainly helps when entering nightly shoot outs. But believe it or not, they need to give him a bigger platform to succeed. While Nash’s shooting percentage (currently above 31%) is unsustainable Nash is only averaging a shade over 16 minutes per game so if that number were to rise to around the 18-20 minute mark you have to assume Nash would generate even more offense.

Alain Vigneault would be well advised to give Nash more minutes and ride his star forward hard. In the meantime the Rangers Coach can let Derek Stepan work his way back while Marty St Louis and co. find their games. Right now Nash is by far the Rangers best bet for success, it’s time he was used even more.

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