Rangers top Blue Jackets in Nash’s return to Columbus

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Here he was, in all his glory, No. 61, Rick Nash … skating, scrapping, battling, driving to the inside, dropping his gloves, fighting … and leading the Rangers to a critical 3-1 victory over the Blue Jackets on Friday night in a match bubbling with all of the inherent passion, intensity and nastiness of playoff hockey.

“There was tons of emotion,” Nash, booed for the most part, said after his first game as a Ranger in Columbus. “I try to play with the same emotion every night but there was a little more [for this game].

“When did I begin to feel the emotion? Probably when we landed Wednesday in Columbus.”

It was another former Blue Jacket, Derick Brassard, who got the winner by beating Sergei Bobrovsky with a bank shot from around the net at 11:31 of the third period to break a 1-1 deadlock. But there is no doubt at all this victory, which allowed the Blueshirts to leapfrog the Jackets into third place in the Metropolitan Division, was driven by Nash’s signature performance as a Ranger.

There was the goalmouth fracas at 17:06 of the second period in which Nash launched a pair of gloved fists at Bobrovsky’s throat when the goaltender swatted away No. 61’s stick after the two men had collided on the winger’s right wing drive to the net on which an apparent goal was waved off for “incidental contact.”

Incidentally, that followed a first period in which Bobrovsky twice whacked Nash across the back of the legs in a game that began nasty and only ratcheted up as it evolved.

Rick Nash skates past a Blue Jackets fan who’s still a Rick Nash fan.AP

“What set me off? Did you see? It’s that [Bobrovsky] flings my stick away when I reach down to pick it up after he gives me two whacks,” said Nash, still on a high in the postgame room. “He’s an emotional guy trying to get into the game and I’m trying to get my team the game.”

Then, there was the fight with Matt Calvert at 0:12 of third, the game still scoreless, after the wingers jostled and sparred before and immediately after the opening draw of the period, and then went down in a heap before Nash started throwing punches when both regained their feet.

“That was probably the two cross-checks to the head, the slew foot and him saying he was going with me and doesn’t care,” said Nash, who had seven shots in 14:44. “Did you see?”

The Rangers saw and that included Henrik Lundqvist, who was magnificent throughout in dealing with constant traffic and physicality in his crease.

“That got me fired up,” The King said of seeing Nash go with Calvert. “It got me mad. It got me to think, ‘There’s no way we’re going to lose this hockey game when they fight our guy.’

“I’m still kind of mad about [the fact] that he had to fight.”

The truculent Jackets, who pounded the Rangers at every opportunity through a match in which they were credited with a 42-17 advantage in hits, actually took a 1-0 lead at 1:12 of the third when Nick Foligno capitalized on an astonishing defensive zone turnover by Benoit Pouliot to beat Lundqvist from the high slot.

But the Rangers tied it 44 seconds later when Derek Stepan converted Ryan McDonagh’s centering feed and then Brassard came from behind—as did his team for the 2-1 lead. Carl Hagelin’s empty-netter sealed it at 19:21 after the Jackets pressed like mad to draw even

“We knew what kind of a game this was going to be, we knew the importance,” said Marc Staal. “The mood in the room was different.

“It was all going to be about winning one-on-one battles and fighting through whatever we faced. And then we got that game from [Nash],” said No. 18. “It was emotional for him, the crowd was kind of bi-polar, booing and cheering, then booing some more, and he responded, playing all night with that edge.

“He got us going. And we followed his lead.”

A signature night for Nash, and a signature win for the Rangers.