Rick Nash fine away from Bruins playoff spotlight

TAMPA --It took Ken Hitchcock two months to solve Rick Nash.
It was 2006, and Hitchcock had become coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets, and Nash was in his fourth season, including a 41-goal season at age 19 in 2003-04.

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That season Nash was the first teenager in NHL history to win the Rocket Richard Trophy, given to the League's leading goal-scorer, finishing in a three-way tie with Jarome Iginla of the Calgary Flames and Ilya Kovalchuk of the Atlanta Thrashers.
The forward had found his place in the NHL, and it was as a goal-scorer. Which was fortunate, because some of his other numbers were lacking, including a minus-27 rating in 2002-03 and minus-35 in 2003-04.
"I watched him play and every time he was on the ice there was a chance in either end," Hitchcock said Sunday. "There was a chance in the offensive zone, but there was also a chance in the [defensive] zone.
"I just felt if we were going to get any better, he had to be the guy that got everything propped up. He had to be the guy that we could show off as, 'Hey, if our best player can play this way, then we can all play this way.'"
Nash bought in.
"It was an immediate answer," said Nash, whose Boston Bruins are tied 1-1 in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference Second Round against the Tampa Bay Lightning, with Game 3 at TD Garden on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, TVAS). "I knew what I wanted to be."
It took Nash 1½ seasons to figure it out, to fully transform himself and his game, to make the alterations that would allow a pure scorer to become an all-around player, giving himself the chance to play for Olympic teams, make World Championship rosters and have a career that might someday end with him as a plus player. (He got to plus-1 after last season, but is minus-11 after this season.)

"I know what I'm supposed to do on the ice: I'm supposed to score goals," Nash said. "But there's a whole other part of hockey -- and goals are fun, goals are exciting -- but if you can't play in your own end, then your team's not going to go very far.
"Individually, yeah, it's great. But I'd rather be known as a good two-way player than a goal-scorer being minus-30 my whole career."
That was the player who left Columbus after four Stanley Cup Playoff games, all losses, in nine seasons. That was the player who on July 23, 2012, was traded to the New York Rangers, with whom he would score 145 goals in six seasons, including 42 in 2014-15, and get to the postseason five times. But those runs would all end in disappointment.
Nash would disappoint. Because it seemed that when the playoffs came, he did not come through, at least not in the way the cauldron in New York believed he should.
But those 1½ seasons early in his NHL career explain why the criticism is not entirely fair, why Nash is more than his goal total. And why, given all that, the Bruins might just be the perfect place for him to flourish.
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The thing that needs to be remembered is that, before getting to the Rangers, Nash had played in only those four playoff games. He had never won a postseason game. He was, effectively, a rookie in the guise of a 10-year veteran when the Rangers began the 2012-13 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
"Everything was new to him," said Scott Arniel, the former associate coach of the Rangers. "It's no different than [Bruins rookie Jake] DeBrusk going through it, or a guy like [Evander] Kane in San Jose, who'd never played in a playoff game. It's a different game and you have to live it, you have to go through it.
"I think obviously the fans in New York were looking for instant success from Rick his first year in the playoffs and maybe it wasn't there."
Which even Nash, who had five points (one goal, four assists) in 12 games for the Rangers that first postseason, can admit.
Before this season Nash had 41 points (15 goals, 26 assists) in 77 playoff games, including 10 points (three goals, seven assists) in 25 games in 2014, when the Rangers made the Stanley Cup Final and lost to the Los Angeles Kings in five games.
Nash didn't have a point in the Final.

"I think that people were a little hard on him in New York," said Lightning forward J.T. Miller, a Rangers teammate from 2012 until they each were traded this season prior to the NHL Trade Deadline. "He did so many good things on the long runs we had there. Rick could do everything. We had plenty of scoring. He was playing 200 feet and playing in the last minute of the game and killing penalties.
"Not sure why people were so hard on the guy. He's a pretty good player."
Arniel has a theory.
"I think all goal-scorers get criticized," he said. "If your team doesn't win the Cup, then you're going to get criticized because you didn't score enough. It's no different than a goaltender. If he doesn't win and he gives up goals, he's the reason why."
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When the Bruins were considering trading for Nash, which they did Feb. 25, general manager Don Sweeney consulted defenseman Nick Holden, who had been acquired from the Rangers in a trade five days earlier.
"They asked, 'What's his win level coming in here? Is he going to want to push himself?'" Holden said. "I just told them, you see it every day. He's such a good pro. … The way he plays shift-to-shift is remarkable."
Nash was not brought to Boston to be the goal-scorer he was supposed to be in New York, or the young wunderkind he was in Columbus.
He's supposed to score, of course, but he doesn't have to be everything to the team. He can play a supporting role, a role that might be more appropriate for who he is off the ice -- low-key, soft-spoken -- and who he is on the ice, especially at this stage of his career, at 33.
"I think the best thing that happens to Rick right now is that there's three guys playing ahead of him that are amazing, they're playing outstanding," Arniel said of the line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak, which has combined for 45 points (12 goals, 33 assists) in nine games this postseason. "That's the perfect spot for him."
Because in Boston, the spotlight isn't quite so bright.

"When I first got [to the Rangers] it was like that because we had [Marian] Gaborik and [Brad] Richards and [Ryan] Callahan was the captain … but then those guys kind of went away and it was all eyes on me," Nash said.
In Boston, Nash can slip in behind the established stars, the top-line players, the leaders. He can, as he said, "just come in and try not to ruffle any feathers and try to do my thing.
"You know what? It's nice."
It didn't start out perfectly for Nash, who missed the final 12 games of the regular season with a concussion. He had chance after chance in the first round against the Toronto Maple Leafs, with one power-play goal and one assist in seven games to show for it. Finally it came around, with two goals in a 6-2 Game 1 win against the Lightning, including a snipe for the game-winner on, as DeBrusk put it, "one of the nicest shots I've seen in a while."
Perhaps that bodes well.
Nash tends to be a streaky player, one who can score in bushels. But that's not all he does. Not since Hitchcock changed his way of thinking, changed his game, making him the type of player that, much like Bergeron, plays "an error-free game most nights," according to Hitchcock.
And he wants to win. He wants what he hasn't yet gotten, what he hasn't allowed himself to believe is possible this year. He's gotten close before, to Game 5 of the Final, and fallen short.
He has waited and worked and transformed, and perhaps now he will be rewarded. Perhaps finally he has found the right spot.
"Rick's all about winning, especially now that he's a little bit older," Arniel said. "He doesn't care if he's on the fourth line. He just wants to be on a winning team. He wants to win the Cup. It's the one thing that's missing on his resume.
"He's handled both the stardom and also the criticism that's come his way over the years. He's handled it so professionally. He's never allowed it to bother him. He's just gone out and been Rick Nash every night."