Let’s get right to it: From the moment on Thursday night when the Rangers begin their quest to win the Stanley Cup, nobody but nobody will be subject to harsher inspection under the spotlight than Rick Nash.
That’s the burden when great expectations are met by a three-goal output in 25 playoff games the way it went last year for Nash, who did all of his scoring in the conference final against Montreal.
That’s the burden when the NHL’s third-leading goal-scorer in the 10 seasons of the hard-cap era (Alex Ovechkin has 475 followed by Jarome Iginla with 339 and Nash at 320) has a total of five playoff goals in 41 career games.
But that also is a burden No. 61 not only is prepared to accept, it is one that he has lived with throughout a career that began in Columbus in 2002 after his first-overall selection in the preceding June’s Entry Draft.
“I think the spotlight has been on me right from the start of the season,” Nash told The Post with a smile on his face following Tuesday’s practice. “I think the spotlight has been on me right from the start of my career.
“I don’t think there’s going to be any additional pressure to what I’m used to,” he said. “Whatever the expectations on me coming from the outside, I have my own expectations.
“My expectations aren’t about scoring goals. They’re about doing whatever I can — and obviously that includes scoring — to help us win,” said Nash, who minutes earlier had acknowledged the Rangers’ status as the team to beat. “I want to win. That’s all that I’m here for.”
Nash was the Rangers’ best player by a considerable margin throughout the season. His excellence and relentless work ethic set a bar for his teammates. He had as good a season away from the puck as any forward in the league. He was as effective and dangerous a penalty-killer as the Rangers have had in years. If Nash were to win the Selke as the NHL’s best defensive forward, there would be no reason whatsoever to ask for a recount.
But it’s the goals, stupid (No, not you, Big Fella). It’s the goals that everyone will lock into. Nash can be the best player across every inch of the 200×85, but if he’s not finishing, everyone else will finish the thought.
“You know what I think?” Nash asked before answering rhetorically. “That I scored 42 goals this year, but if I’d gone minus-30, what kind of a trade-off would that have been for the team.
“You think if I score a ton of goals in the first round and we lose, that’s going to mean anything to me? It’s about winning.”
But … But the Rangers need their best goal-scorer to score goals in the playoffs. Every team does. You can go round and round in circles, but if Nash isn’t scoring, then he isn’t playing at his best. Finishing is part of the deal. It has to be part of the deal if the Rangers are going to cross the finish line.
A year ago, when Nash scored on just three of his 83 shots for a typographical-error-looking playoff shooting percentage of 3.6, he was coming off a year in which he had sustained a second concussion within eight months and was not comfortable or confident going to the dirty areas.
There is no fear this year. There hasn’t been from Day 1. He seems more at ease. Nash has taken the puck to the net, he has set up in front on the power play. He has established the tempo for his skilled linemates Derick Brassard and Mats Zuccarello on a unit whose greatest flaw is its unselfishness and penchant for making the one extra pass — even if Nash took the second most shots in the league this year, trailing only Ovechkin in that category.
Nash has won two Olympic gold medals and a world’s championship for Canada. Yet after the last postseason and the one before that, in which he scored one goal in 12 games, a bull’s-eye will be on his back as he skates under the spotlight onto the big stage of Broadway.
“I get it, but it’s not about me and it’s not about me doing one thing,” Nash said. “It’s about us as a team, it’s about all of us bringing our best every night and embracing the challenge.
“I’m ready for it,” he said. “I’m ready.”