Larry Brooks

Larry Brooks

NHL

Nash, St. Louis have been non-factors for Rangers

If the Rangers had lost a 1-0 game like this two years ago in which they owned a huge territorial edge and blasted 41 shots on net as they did Sunday at the Garden against the Sharks, the cry would have gone out for the front office to go get a big-time goal-scorer who would produce when it really mattered.

Someone, maybe, like Rick Nash.

If not Nash, maybe a Marty St. Louis.

What?

Oh.

The thing is, the Rangers and general manager Glen Sather already acquired those players, Nash about two years ago and St. Louis about two weeks ago in sending away three Bluebloods to get them. Yet, here are the Blueshirts, still struggling like mad to put the puck in the net as the season drip, drip, drips through the hourglass and the race — or is that the noose? — tightens.

St. Louis, scoreless in seven games as a Ranger, was no factor whatsoever against the Sharks, one of only two forwards — along with fourth-line center Dominic Moore — not to record a shot against Antti Niemi. Make that no shots and not even an attempt for the winger who has carved out a Hall of Fame career by rising to the occasion.

Nash did have five shots, but never came close to beating Niemi. Most of No. 61’s game was spent on the outside, from where it is mighty, mighty difficult to make much of an impact at any time of the year, but certainly not now, when games are generally decided in front of the net in hockey’s version of hand-to-hand combat.

And so it is now one goal in his last nine games, and two in 10 since returning home from Sochi with the gold medal. And even as Nash leads the Rangers with 20 goals, that includes 11 in an 11-game stretch in January. This leaves nine goals in the other 41 games of the season.

“When you get to this point of the season, it’s more about work ethic than talent,” Nash told The Post. “When I look at my shifts, the difference between when I’m scoring and not scoring is probably the time I spend on the inside.

“It’s not like I don’t want to, but I have to do a better job of getting to the inside.”

Listen, this defeat is no more all on Nash (or St. Louis, for that matter) than the Rangers’ precarious position falls entirely on No. 61. The Blueshirts might actually have scored a goal against Niemi, but the Carl Hagelin wrapround with 3:15 remaining in the second period that appeared to slide into the net between Niemi and the left post could never be seen over the line.

And it isn’t all on Nash that the power play has fallen into a deep funk, 0-for-3 with a shorthanded goal against on Sunday, and 1-for-16 over the last five games.

“It’s out of sorts,” Brad Richards said. “I want to watch video on it, and we will [Monday], but basically we have to play with more poise and patience.”

Mats Zuccarello hasn’t scored in 11 games and hasn’t scored in an indoor game since Jan. 18 in Ottawa, which is where the Rangers play on Tuesday. Derick Brassard doesn’t have a point in his last eight matches.

But it’s the big guy’s shoulders on which so much falls. I abhor linking performance to paycheck, but when a player has the eighth-highest cap hit in the NHL, as Nash does at $7.8 million, there is a responsibility that comes with it. Oh, by the way, the top seven are Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Corey Perry, Eric Staal, Ryan Getzlaf and Shea Weber.

“I definitely feel that responsibility to score,” Nash said. “I know what’s expected of me and what I expect of myself. I’m aware of that.”

Two years ago when the Rangers did have Marian Gaborik, they thought they needed someone else to score in crunch time games like this.

They got Nash.

And here we are again.