Nash has exceeded my expectations. I watched a number of Checkers games during the lockout and did not see the same level to his game that he is exhibiting now. He's good on faceoffs and has more playmaking and finishing ability than I thought. I hope he can keep it going.
- Barbecued Hockey
I think the Canes experience this year is a perfect case for "you need to give guys a trial to figure it out for sure." Some guys move up to the NHL level and some combination of the speed and the pressure just overwhelms them, and they very quickly look like they are in over their head and will need time to adjust - if they ever do. And you get other guys who strangely their game stays exactly the same or sometimes even improves at the NHL level.
Reference Boychuk and Dalpe. Both have been labeled as future NHLers. Both have been pretty successful at the AHL level. And both have just never really worked at the NHL level (so far) for whatever reason. In both cases, they just never really looked comfortable in the bigger game. Boychuk's bag of moves just has never really worked on NHL defenseman, and he has never really found the knack for finding and finishing scoring chances. So he makes the occasional phenomenal skill play that gives the optimists hope, but he just was never a net positive. He got a nice 8-10 game run on Malkin's line on Pittsburgh before being a long-term healthy scratch and then dropped again. Now he is trying in Nashville. Dalpe has not been horrible, but he just has looked more like a fill in than a difference-maker in a decent number of chances at the NHL level.
So now enter Riley Nash. From about his first game he just looked comfortable with the speed of the NHL game and also seemed to have a solid knack of reading plays correctly at both ends of the ice. Right out of the gate, he looked comfortable carrying the puck and not in way over his head defensively at the challenging center position. Then toss in a recent offensive surge both finding open pieces of ice at the right time to shoot and also finding teammates, and you wonder how he could have been so far down the pecking order for NHL auditions.
I think the simple answer is that it is hard to tell what will happen when you give a guy a shot at the NHL level. One would logically expect that the NHL is harder so anyone takes at least a small step down. But for a guy who can adapt to the speed and read plays well, there is this strange chance that the player actually looks better because they are suddenly playing with a higher caliber of player who also reads plays correctly. So when you have the puck on your stick and a tiny bit of time and figure that your wing should go to point A for a scoring chance, he actually does. Reference the 2 assists to Jussi Jokinen.
Regardless, right now I rank Riley Nash as #2 in the recent things that excite me about the Canes. #1 will always be the prospect of playoff hockey, because I as a fan crave it and the Canes as a team need it. And I don't mean to downplay tons of other great story lines right now (Staal line, Justin Faulk whose contribution is underrated especially on a league-wide stage, the goalie situation, etc.) but the trajectory of Riley Nash if it continues could have a HUGE impact on what happens in late April/early May and almost as importantly trying to make the $/lineup stuff work going forward in building a consistent playoff entrant especially when the Canes get tossed into a tough division next year.
