Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy is about as candid as NHL coaches come, so he admitted he didn’t have some magical explanation when Rick Nash was struggling to turn his chances into goals in Round 1.
“I haven’t coached him long enough to know if this is typically what happens, where it’s a volume of shots or it’s just his sights are a little bit off,” Cassidy said before Game 7. “...The puck is finding him because he’s smart, he’s fast, and he’s got good hands. Everything’s falling into place except that last piece.”
Considering Nash was acquired at the trade deadline for the last piece to fall into place, that was becoming problematic. At the end of the series with the Leafs, he had one power play goal and two points on 24 shots.
It’s not necessarily the worst thing to take a ton of shots -- just ask Torey Krug -- but that serves a different purpose. Krug and David Pastrnak were the only two Bruins with higher shot counts than Nash through that series. Pastrnak had five goals and Krug had two (and unlike Nash, the general point of Krug lobbing shots in from the blue line is for other players to tip it in or bury the rebound.)
Maybe the thought of being permanently separated from Noted Playoff Hero Jake DeBrusk scared him, maybe he’s feeling fully 100% again after the concussion, maybe the type of shots he takes happened to be easy saves for Frederik Andersen and agree less with Andrei Vasilevskiy. Cassidy hasn’t coached Nash long enough to know if this is typically what happens, and neither have I.
Here’s what we do know: Rick Nash scored two goals in a playoff game on the road. One was a vintage Nash power play tip in, one was a more decisive “I have arrived” snipe.
“Through my career, it’s always seemed my goals have come in bunches,” he told reporters postgame. “The chances were there, I was playing on the inside and finally got rewarded tonight.”
So Nash says bunches are typically what happens for him, and his theory holds up -- this regular season alone he had two back-to-back two-goal games and four two-goal games total. In 2013-14, a five-game goal streak featured two consecutive two-goal games, and he kicked off 2014-15 with a four-game goal streak with two two-goal games.
Just like his high shot volume, this is not necessarily great or terrible. If the trend is going to continue, Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs is not the worst time to score in bunches. At the very least, he won't be hearing about his alleged playoff curse for a while.