What’s behind the resurgence of Rick Nash?

Currently Rick Nash, a member of the New York Rangers, is on pace to score 52 goals this year along with 38 assists for 90 points. Both the on pace goals and points would eclipse career highs of 41 goals and 79 points.

This is a stark contrast to last season when he finished with just 26 goals and 13 assists for 39 points. Along with only three goals in 25 playoff games. So what is behind the resurgence of Rick Nash?

Physical involvement

Throughout the majority of Rick Nash’s career the 6 foot 4 inch power forward have averaged over one hit per game played. Last year he had just 11 hits in 65 games. While not quite to his career average Rick Nash has 24 hits in 28 games this year. Clearly being more involved in the physical element of the game helps his point production.

Effect of his teammates

This year so far his puck luck rating, also known as PDO, is showing that he is receiving far more than his fair share of luck. The rating currently sits over 105 and a rating of 100 is generally where this number regresses to.

While Rick Nash has been on the ice the New York Rangers have scored on nearly 15% of their shots and stopped 91% of the shots against.

High percentage shooting

Rick Nash has gone from scoring on just 9% of his shots to over 20% of his shots thus far this year. That is a very substantial increase. Over the course of a season of 283 shots, which would be the career average for Nash, this would see him score 28 more goals.

Will his resurgence continue?

The short answer is no. Given that, even as one of the better shooters in the NHL, Rick Nash’s career shooting percentage sits around 12%. That is still an 8% gap from where it currently sits.

That is a loss of 23 goals over the course of the aforementioned 283 shot year. At his career average rate he would score 34 goals on that amount of shots and at his inflated current shooting percentage he would score 57 goals.

As well, his puck possession game has been slipping this season below 50% to 47.5% of the shot attempts for while he is on the ice. Since 2007-08 Nash has only two other seasons where his possession rate was below 50%.

Don’t get me wrong Rick Nash should still have a respectable season, much better than 2013-14. However I do not see a possibility of him continuing his current pace of goal scoring.

 

About Mike Burse

Mike will make the numbers make sense in the NHL for Puck Drunk Love.

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