Everything's coming up goals for revitalized Rangers power forward Rick Nash

The first goal showcased Rick Nash’s dominance. He pounced on a turnover and took off on a 2-on-1 rush. A split-second before the defender could deflect the shot with an outstretched stick, he fired from the left circle and beat the goalie cleanly, giving the New York Rangers a 1-0 lead over the Pittsburgh Penguins 26 seconds into the game Sunday.

The second goal showcased something else. The Rangers won a faceoff. Nash backed up with the puck above the left circle. While still backing up, he flicked the puck on net. It went off the stick of a defender in front, fluttered over the right arm of the goalie and fell across the line. It gave the Rangers a 3-1 lead and turned out to be the winning goal in a 5-2 victory.

There are two parts to Nash’s season: good health and good luck. He’s skating the way he used to skate, and he’s getting the bounces, and he’s tied for the NHL lead with 28 goals. He’s on pace for 53 goals, which would shatter his career high, as he heads to the All-Star Game in Columbus, the city where he spent his first nine NHL seasons.

“It’s amazing,” Nash said. “When the puck’s going in, it’s going in. And when it’s not, it’s not.”

Nash leans on that truism in good times and bad, but he has a smile on his face as he repeats it now. He suffered a concussion three games into last season. He missed 17 games. When he returned, he wasn’t in top shape.

“Everyone’s been playing games for six weeks,” said teammate Mats Zuccarello. “That’s a lot of games, and you’ve been sitting in a dark room, watching TV, can’t do anything.”

Nash still scored six goals in his first 12 games back. He still scored 26 goals in 65 games, a 32-goal pace over a full schedule. He did not have a bad season.

He did a lot of good things in the playoffs – his defense is underrated – but he scored only three goals in 25 games as the Rangers went to the Stanley Cup Final. That gave him only four goals in 37 playoff games since the Rangers acquired him from the Blue Jackets in a deal that cost them Artem Anisimov, Brandon Dubinsky, Tim Erixon and a first-rounder. He was booed at Madison Square Garden.

Two problems: He played on the perimeter too much, and even when he did go to the hard areas, moreso in the final, he couldn’t catch a break. Everyone remembers double overtime of Game 5, when he had the puck in the right circle, an open net and a chance to send the series back to MSG for a Game 6. His shot glanced off the shaft of a defender’s stick and fluttered high. He shook his head on the bench. The Rangers ended up losing. His shooting percentage was 3.6 in the playoffs, comically low. When it’s not, it’s not.

“He knew that he needed a real good summer of training … training and skill work,” said Rangers coach Alain Vigneault. “Even though his play had been good, we had to find a way to get him back as far as point production. We didn’t find it. He found it. He took it upon himself to train hard, come to camp focused and with the right attitude, and he’s getting the benefits of that right now.”

Nash said he stayed the same weight, listed at 213 pounds, but did more running and less biking. That fits with what one NHL scout observed: He’s moving his feet more. He and his wife had their first child as the season began, giving him better perspective, easing some pressure. He kept playing well defensively, coming back hard, killing penalties, defending one-goal leads in final minutes.

At the same time, the puck started going in – off his stick, off his shinpads, even off his butt. He parked himself in front of the crease Nov. 5 against the Detroit Red Wings, and the puck banked off his backside and past the goalie’s left arm. His shooting percentage this season is 17.8 percent, the second-highest of his career. When the puck’s going in, it’s going in.

“You hold the stick looser,” Nash said. “You just feel a lot more confident.”

Some of this is health, conditioning and confidence. Some of this is luck. But they might be interconnected to some extent. You make your own luck by putting yourself in the right positions. You can’t score a butt goal if your butt isn’t in front of the net, right? The more success you have, the better you feel, the more you put yourself in the right positions, the more success snowballs.

“He’s been a dominant player on our team,” Vigneault said. “He’s been a force. We need him to play that way. You need your best players to be their best, and he’s certainly doing that for us.”

This will be Nash’s sixth All-Star Game. That it will be in Columbus will be, in his words, “almost weird.” The Blue Jackets drafted him first overall in 2002, after their second NHL season. He became the face of the franchise and went to the All-Star Game five times – but the playoffs only once. He ended up requesting a trade.

He still spends some of his summers in the Columbus area and calls it “home.” He still gets booed at Nationwide Arena.

“I don’t really like the hockey side of coming back here,” said Nash when the Rangers were in Columbus on Friday night. “The All-Star Game’s the All-Star Game. I think more my family and friends will have fun with it, but for me it’s just kind of something I do to represent these guys that got me there.”

But it’s almost fitting. He’s a Blueshirt, but he looks like he did as a Blue Jacket.

“This,” Zuccarello said, “is the Rick Nash that you’ve seen for over 10 years in this league.”

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