Boston Bruins: Half-Season Look At Riley Nash
The team at Causeway Crowd continues its half-season wrap up of the Boston Bruins. This time, we swing around to a recent acquisition to the Black and Gold, B’s forward Riley Nash.
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Boston Bruins forward Riley Nash was picked up by the B’s during the off-season. The B’s were hoping to get someone who can put a few goals and help the Bruins improve their penalty kill. While the Bruins haven’t gotten everything they wanted out of the deal, Nash is proving to be a useful addition in Boston.
The 27-year old Nash hasn’t put up that many points for the Bruins. He’s netted only a single goal and has just six points this season. His scoring is down from where it should be, and that is his biggest liability. He does have a few assets that offset the negative.
He’s a decent person to have on the penalty kill. The Bruins acquisition of Nash and Dominic Moore showed their need to make the penalty kill more formidable. Currently, the B’s penalty kill is the third best in the league, and Nash has been a part of that.
Nash found himself moved from center to wing on day one. It was a necessary move. The Bruins are incredibly deep in the center position, and players like Nash and Ryan Spooner have found themselves on the wing . Nash has found a niche on the Bruins as a fourth-line winger, and hopefully he can provide more scoring as the season goes on.
“I would love to expand that [playing on the wing] role. I think any guy would,” said Nash at the beginning of the season. “But I just want to be someone that’s reliable, play anywhere. I played center for most of the year last year and I wound up playing wing for about 30 games. Had some success out there. So I just want to be someone that coach can rely on, whether it’s playing 10 minutes a night or 15 minutes a night. Someone that he’s not nervous about putting over the boards.”
I project that Nash will finish the season with 5-8 goals to his name. He’ll also finish out the season with 16-20 points for the season. That’s what you kind of expect for a player who’ll play about 13 minutes a game. It would be nice to see Nash put in more than that, but for where he is on the team, it’s unlikely.