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At 6-4, 220-pounds, players around the league are talking about the dedication and willpower of Columbus winger Rick Nash.
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Nash a torchbearer for a new era
By Larry Wigge | NHL.com columnist
Jan. 3, 2006
There was a sudden chill in the late-summer air when one-by-one some of the game's most intimidating warriors called it quits.
Al MacInnis, Mark Messier, Scott Stevens, Ron Francis, Vincent Damphousse and Brett Hull.
It's like a Who's Who in the glorious history of the NHL, representing 15 Stanley Cups between them as well as a plethora of other individual awards and sure first-round Hall of Fame inductions.
The next question is: Where are the next group of cornerstone superstars going to come from?
While it will be difficult to replace heart-and-soul, down-to-earth, real-live stars like MacInnis, Messier, Stevens, Francis, Damphousse and Hull, the game will not suffer. At least not for long.
Not when you have a chance to watch how effortlessly some of the game's burgeoning young talents like Brad Richards, Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis, Jarome Iginla and Miikka Kiprusoff performed for Tampa Bay and Calgary in the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals.
Every year I think the talent surplus might be slowing to a trickle, there's another Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, Dion Phaneuf, Peter Prucha, Marek Svatos, Mike Richards, Andrej Meszaros, Ryan Miller, Marc-Andre Fleury or Henrik Lundqvist to audition to carry the game's torch.
And it's more than just supply and demand.
Unlike the NBA, where some might say the league still hasn't replaced the Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson era of public awareness. The new NHL is trying to show that what its great young stars do on the ice is as dynamic as what Jordan once did in the air ... without putting up astronomical numbers each game.
I was thinking about this the other day, when the Canadian Olympic Team was named and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Columbus Blue Jackets left winger Rick Nash should be a part of the team in spite of his season-long high ankle sprain and knee injuries that limited him to a handful of games.
I like to talk about special players and how they talk about the passion they have for this fast-paced game that has a slippery slope of emotions that hit you like a roller-coaster ride when you least expect it. That's sort of how Nash felt after tying with Ilya Kovalchuk and Iginla for the NHL's goal-scoring lead with 41 back in 2003-04, only to find out he couldn't compete the way he had become accustomed early in the season because of the ankle injury that limited his flash, dash and crash to one of those metal players on the board hockey game we've all played at one time or another.
Nash just cringed when I asked him about not being able to ... play like, uh, Rick Nash.
"It's like taking the thing you love away from you," Nash said, struggling with each word. "This is my life. And ... uh ... I don't know what to think ... what to feel.
"I guess you could compare it to a parent who just had something happen to one of their kids. You're stunned. Helpless."
It was just a couple weeks after I talked to Nash and he ended his boring routine of going to the rink and working on the rehab of his ankle and knee. Hours or training. Days and weeks of rehab. Then, suddenly, he was ready.
At Nashville on December 17: Goal.
At Detroit on December 20: Goal.
At home against Dallas on December 21: Another goal.
Caring. Dedication. Willpower. All of this packed into a 6-4, 220-pound frame that has players around the league talking about Rick Nash.
"We were sitting on the bench, just laughing at how good he is," Phoenix Coyotes winger Shane Doan was saying the other day, recalling his time with Team Canada at the World Championships in Austria last spring. "Rick brings a real honest-to-goodness kid's mentality to this game. It's fun for him -- and it's fun watching him play, watching him develop into the kind of dominating player that ..."
We'll finish the sentence where Doan paused.
"That Mark Messier once showed us with the fire in his eyes and no-one-can-stop-me attitude."
"He takes everything to the net," San Jose Sharks defenseman Scott Hannan told me earlier this season. "For a young guy who is big and strong, he has such quick hands that allow him to put the puck upstairs quickly from in close. Not too many people can do that."
"Those long strides chew up a lot of space," said Sharks center Joe Thornton, who was a linemate in Nash's coming-out party at the World Championships. "Once he gets position on you, there is no way any defenseman has a chance to control him."
New Jersey Devils goalie Martin Brodeur comments
on Rick Nash:
"He's the future of our league along with guys like Jarome Iginla and Brad Richards and Vinny Lecavalier".
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There were times in that game at Detroit where it looked like the vaunted Red Wings wanted to slow the game down and play keepaway when the Blue Jackets put Nash and Sergei Fedorov on the ice together when there was extra space on the ice when the team's were playing 4-on-4 in overtime.
"He's the future of our league along with guys like Jarome Iginla and Brad Richards and Vinny Lecavalier," said New Jersey Devils goalie Martin Brodeur. "He puts himself in good positions to make these moves. A lot of guys can make these moves, but he does it at a high speed. He's the future of our league.
"There are a lot of young players in the league who want to be goal-scorers, but some don't want to pay the price. He'll do it. ... and what is so great about Rick Nash is he does is with a flair, with creativity for such a big man."
Make that man-child.
At 21, Nash is barely old enough to order a beer at a restaurant. He is not too far removed from the boy who played for fun on the pond behind his parents' home in Brampton, Ontario. He's still like the boy next door, only now he has a home of his own in Columbusand a multi-million dollar annual salary.
"I remember interviewing him before the (2002) draft," Blue Jackets General Manager Doug MacLean has told me several times. "I told him I really liked him, that I'd love to have him, that we had him No. 1 on our list for more than half of the season and didn't want to let him get away -- but I didn't know if I could get him with the third pick.
"You know what he said? 'Well, why don't you trade up to get me?'"
When MacLean finally went to sleep in the wee hours before the 2002 Entry Draft, he admits to having dreams of the impact that power forwards like Brendan Shanahan and Sergei Fedorov had for the Red Wings in their Stanley Cup run. He also dreamed about the impact youngsters Dany Heatley and Ilya Kovalchuk had made that previous season for Atlanta, an expansion team similar to Columbus, desperate for scoring and a foundation with which to build the team.
The Blue Jackets are still struggling to find their identity after four-plus NHL seasons. Goals are still hard to come by. But one thing is clear, when MacLean woke up in the middle of the night before the 2002 draft: He knew he had to trade up ahead of Florida and Atlanta to get this kid.
His belief in Nash proved right on the money, because the youngster displayed the courage and passion and skills, first in facing the speed of the professional game and then in adjusting to the reality that he is just a youngster competing against men.
"We talk about these young kids in the draft each year like they are sure stars and leaders, but in a lot of cases that's only wishful thinking," Calgary Flames General Manager-coach Darryl Sutter once told me. "But, to me, Nash is one of those sure things. He's out of the same mold as Iginla -- young, powerful, hard to play against, with great leadership potential."
"I grew up watching Joe Thornton (first pick overall by Bostonin 1997). What I like about him is he is someone who will go into the corners, bang and crash, and be aggressive but also have skill," said Nash. "Now, I find myself looking at how guys like Keith Tkachuk, Jarome Iginla, Todd Bertuzzi and a few other power forwards make their own time and space out there with their size and speed."
Nash is still embarrassed by the whole idea of comparing himself to established stars in the NHL, but he's not shy about using his blooming experience to take advantage of the league's new rules that limit the amount of hooking, holding and obstructing opponents can do to a 6-4, 220-pound player.
He's a shark in Blue Jackets clothing ... and he likes that comparison. He likes it so much that he has the tattoo of a shark on his left shoulder.
"I like the persona of a shark -- dangerous, scary and deadly," Nash laughs.
Few people know that Nash learned to skate at 2 and began playing hockey at 6. He grew up rooting for the Toronto Maple Leafs and admiring the skills of power forward Mats Sundin.
Now, he's the one being admired by players around the NHL.
And Rick Nash, along with Jarome Iginla, Brad Richards and Vinny Lecavalier, Ilya Kovalchuk and Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin are fast becoming the face of the NHL's future.
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