Nash? Over Crosby and Tavares?
Over Crosby? Easily. Tavares is another matter. That's a tight one as it's hard to argue the Islanders are anywhere even remotely close to where they are without him.
But Nash has had an absolutely monster year, and it's not just in one area. It will never happen, but he could be a perfectly valid Selke nominee this season. His defensive play has been outstanding and has led to his offense. He's one of our best and certainly our most dangerous penalty killer. Because teams have keyed in so strongly on trying to stop Nash, it's opened up all kinds of opportunities for Kreider on the second line and especially for Hagelin and Hayes on the third line. People will point to the two-headed monster of Hank and Talbot in net or our ridiculous defensive corps (but both had huge problems during the first half of the season, especially our defense which did NOT play like you would expect that defensive group to play), and they certainly have caught fire as the season has gone on, but Nash's season is the one and only reason why we have a chance to win the Presidents' Trophy as soon as tomorrow.
I think a lot of people have forgotten that the Rangers were a .500 hockey team at the start of December, and the only reason we were even in that good of shape is because of Rick Nash. And then he continued to stay red hot for months as the rest of the team started to follow in his wake. He only really finally started to cool off, as the rest of the team started to cool off (but still found ways to win), in March, which is really the only reason why I even put him behind Ovechkin, but even now he's starting to heat up again.
Also, from a leadership point of view, not putting a letter on the front of Nash's jersey at the start of the season may have been one of the single smartest decisions that AV has made during his tenure with the Rangers to date. Between that and his regret over his performance in last year's Final, Nash has been motivated as fuck to be a leader on the team.
