The DBJ Rick Nash Olympic Goal Scoring Contest

Seeing as Mike Babcock is going to have Sidney Crosby feeding the puck the the Columbus Blue Jackets' Rick Nash through the 2010 Winter Olympics hockey tournament, it's safe to say that the table is set for the CBJ captain to break out and assume the mantle of international superstar.  The question then becomes, "How big will Nasher blow up?"  And that, my friends, begs a contest.

In the first round, Team Canada will play Team Norway and Team USA.  At that point, they have the potential to skip the one-game second round if they are among the top four teams coming out of the first round.  Then, presuming they stay alive, Team Canada has a quarterfinal, a semifinal and a medal game.   That makes 5 or 6 possible games if my understanding of the Olympic tournament schedule is complete.

How many goals can Nasher pile up in that period of time?  There are plenty of variables, including quality of opponents (or lack thereof - Team USA is playing without RJ Umberger, you know), distribution of minutes and the possible puck-hogging of Sid The Kid.  And I'm not talking about assists - I'm only looking at goals.

Predictions can be posted in the comments on this post.  Because of the late start on this contest, I'm going to accept entries through the beginning of Team Canada's second game, against Team Switzerland on Thursday at 7:30 PM EST.  If you want to be recognized as a winner, you can't post your prediction as "Anonymous."

Winner of this contest gets this blog's undying admiration and an invitation to post on this blog, "The Top 5 Reasons Why Rick Nash is an Incredible Hockey Player".  The losing contestant with the highest goal prediction also gets recognition - because we can't punish the overly optimistic, can we?

I'll start with a more somewhat conservative prediction: 7 goals.  That's a pace of 1 goal/game plus an extra one or two against Team USA - who will be hurting because of not putting Umberger on the roster.

What do you think?



[UPDATE: I changed the word "likely" regarding Crosby puck-hogging to "possible."  It was a poor choice of words.  I was trying to suggest that anything and everything is possible when making a prediction about a tournament like this. Not trying to tear down Crosby.  For that matter, I could have suggested the scoring emergence of Jarome Iginla or inept play form Patrice Bergeron, as both surely have an effect on Nash.]