Blue Jackets announce they will retire Rick Nash's #61

The Columbus Blue Jackets have announced that they will retire former captain Rick Nash's #61 to the rafters prior to their game against the Boston Bruins on March 5th. Nash will be the first player in Blue Jackets history to have this honor.

Check it out:

Nash is the franchise's all-time leader in games played, goals, assists and points as he registered 289 goals and 258 assists for 547 points with 568 penalty minutes in 674 games from 2002-12. The club's captain from 2008-12, he represented the Blue Jackets at five All-Star Games and won a Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy and the NHL Foundation Player Award during his nine seasons with the club.

"Rick Nash was the face of our franchise and our best player for a decade and represented our club on and off the ice with excellence, class and humility," said Blue Jackets Majority Owner John P. McConnell in a prepared statement. "No one is more deserving of this honor than he and we are looking forward to celebrating Rick and his family in what will be a historic and memorable night for all of us on March 5th."

"This is incredibly exciting, not only for Rick and his family, but for our entire organization and our great fans," said Blue Jackets President of Hockey Operations John Davidson. "Only one player can be the first to have their jersey retired by a franchise and with everything that Rick has meant to the Blue Jackets it is fitting that he is the one."

To me, Nash was one of the most exciting players of his generation and had he played in a larger market I feel like he would have been an absolute superstar with the likes of Jarome Iginla, Ilya Kovalchuk, Martin St. Louis, Joe Thornton and other prominent players from the early to mid 2000s.

His combination of size, skill and determination was certainly a sight to behold as is evident from his Top 10 highlights:

Personally though, I'll always remember Nash for absolutely DOMINATING on the world stage alongside Thornton for Team Canada at various international tournaments. His most memorable goal for Canada though has to be this breakaway beauty that essentially buried the Russians in 2010:

Nash was a Hell of a player who never really got his due, I'm glad to see he's finally getting some recognition in Columbus, especially considering the way things ended there.