NHL

Rick Nash picks the right time for a reawakening

MONTREAL — Maybe it took a bigger stage, one with doubled pressure, more attention, brighter lights and grandiose expectations. Maybe that’s what the Rangers’ stars needed to begin shining brightest.

Because in the opening two games of the Eastern Conference finals, a team that has predicated itself on an ideology based around the strength of depth finally is seeing what it’s like to be carried forward on the backs of the players with whom the most pressure lies.

“Seeing 25 guys as ‘A man on a mission’ right now,” Rick Nash said on Tuesday at the team’s hotel. “Everyone wants to do it.”

It took Nash until Game 1 of the conference finals to do enough to get a postseason goal, his 14-game drought snapped in a 7-2 drubbing of the Canadiens at Bell Centre. Then came Game 2 on Monday night, and there was Nash again, burying a one-timer on a three-on-two rush, getting what would turn out to be the game-winner en route to a 3-1 victory and a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

“I’ve tried to stay positive through this whole thing,” said Nash, his team using Tuesday just for travel back to New York in preparation for Wednesday’s practice and Thursday’s Game 3 at the Garden.

“The team’s winning, and that’s truly all I care about. But obviously I want to do what I can to help the team win, but it’s frustrating when you can’t help offensively and you’re supposed to.”

When head coach Alain Vigneault joined the Rangers this offseason, he began instituting this new concept — in stark contrast to his predecessor, John Tortorella — of playing everybody, up and down the bench, en route to a fast pace and quick style. At times it seemed overindulgent, even this playoffs when Nash — who led the team with 26 regular-season goals despite missing 17 games — was coming off the ice with shift times less than 30 seconds.

But that does not preclude Nash from having to contribute offensively.

“I think it’s safe to say everybody expected Rick to score,” Vigneault said. “He was brought in for his production. He’s going through what players go through now and then. He stuck with it. His teammates stuck with him. He kept working extremely hard, and it was just a matter of time for him, in our estimation, to come out of it and now it looks good for us.”

Nash might have looked in total cohesion with linemates Derek Stepan and Chris Kreider when he netted his goal in Game 2, but that one instance doesn’t make them the one entity the Canadiens are going to have to shut down.

“I’m not sure we really have a top line,” Vigneault said. “We’re all four lines, a lot like the Habs. Our scoring is balanced similar on the top three lines. Our fourth line brings us a lot of energy and a lot of physicality and can spend some quality time on the ice. It has found ways to contribute offensively.

“So that’s the only way I think you can move on with such a commanding lead. That’s how you get into the playoffs, and how you get through somewhere else.”

The “somewhere else” Vigneault left unnamed is the Stanley Cup final, which certainly seems within striking distance now that the Canadiens are without their best player, goalie Carey Price, forced to go with 24-year-old rookie Dustin Tokarski in Game 2. Because for all the depth in the world, the old adage of your best players needing to be your best players is even more true in the postseason.

“You want everybody going,” said Brad Richards, on the fringe of that big-name group yet at the head of the leadership group, as he and Martin St. Louis are the only two players on the Rangers roster with the experience of playing in the finals and winning a Cup.

“We’ve had different guys step up all year, and all playoffs. It would be great if everyone was perfect every night, but that’s the sign of a team and that’s why we’re still playing. It’s been by committee, and we made a plan to do that, and if you can get everything going at once, that makes you a lot harder team to play against.”