New York Rangers: Rick Nash is starting to pull his weight

New York Rangers forward Rick Nash has picked up his production to start the second half of the season. Can he keep it up?

We can all exhale in a sigh of relief. New York Rangers forward Rick Nash is still alive.

In the past two games, Nash has been showing flashes of his old self, tallying four total goals.

Nash picked up two on Tuesday night against the Philadelphia Flyers and two on Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres, both propelling the Rangers to two crucial wins to keep them afloat in the playoff picture.

There has been a lot of talk about the likelihood of Nash being dealt at the trade deadline in February. He becomes an unrestricted free agent in July and as his age has been increasing, his production has decreased.

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Nash’s production for the Rangers took a massive hit in between the 2015 season, where he was featured as an All-Star with 69 total points, into the 2016 season, where he totaled about half of that with only 36.

Last season was much of the same where he tallied 38. This season Nash hasn’t been very consistent in scoring either as he isn’t a top three point scorer on the roster despite being the second highest paid player behind Henrik Lundqvist.

Nash is currently is being paid $8.2 million a season and is looked to as the team’s seasoned veteran forward to score. While he hasn’t been scoring like he did in his prime, he has still helped the Rangers in other ways.

Nash is a leader in the locker room and has worked well in all three zones of the ice. Although he hasn’t found the net a lot, he still generates scoring opportunities with his size, strength and reach.

Maybe we will start to see Nash step up and show some more consistency in the second half of the season, as he is much-needed in this stretch of Rangers injuries.

Three of the four goals he scored this week were off the rush so the Rangers must get him the puck if they want to utilize him.

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He currently is being featured on the Rangers’ top forward line along with Pavel Buchnevich and Mika Zibanejad, who have proven to be two of the most fruitful young scorers on the team this season.

If he can keep up the production, it will make things much harder for General Manager Jeff Gorton come the trade deadline.

For all we know, a trade could happen involving Nash regardless of what he does right now, but we can only help he continues to help while he can. At this point, Nash must access his old ways to stay a Ranger at least for now.

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